NBN Co moves into social media

It had to happen.

NBN Co, the company charged with rolling out Australia’s National Broadband Network, has jumped into social media, joining the Twitterati.

The company, which is fast gaining followers, posted its first ‘tweet’ on March 18. It has also used the the Twitter service to post links to its YouTube video, a case study on Animation studio, Blue Rocket Productions.

Director at the Hobart-based firm, David Gurney, talks about how the rollout of the National Broadband Network will help the business remain competitive on the world stage.

“We’re really excited about the NBN roll-out because depending on the package we sign up to we could operate in real time with our partners overseas and exchange large files rapidly,” Gurney said in a case study posted on the NBN Co website.

“We’re talking 24-minute long episodes of high definition video sent across the world in real time, which on our current ADSL2+ connection could take more than 30 hours to download or 11 days per episode to upload.”

Social media is increasingly on the agenda for many organisations. AGIMO recently outlined its social media plans and authorities in Queenland will meet in Brisbane next week to learn how to better use social media during disasters.

Meanwhile, NBN Co may have a tough time keeping up with requests from Twitter followers for NBN services to their homes.

Access to social media facilities is now a key requirement in IT service management, and organisations that delay implementation could be making a big mistake, according to analyst firm, Ovum. In its report, The Applicability of Social Media for IT Service Management the analyst claims IT users will increasingly view ‘social software’ as a must-have.

“Social media tools can work well in IT service management, especially in bringing about improvements in the service provided to users,” Ovum lead analyst and co-author of the report, Mark Blowers, said.

“Delaying an organisation’s participation in incorporating social media IT service management related functions could be a big mistake. As IT service desks increasingly move up the agenda in terms of importance for organisations, integration of social media will be seen by employees as a must-have, and a lack of availability could generate inefficiencies, such as workarounds, creating compliance issues.”

According to the report, enterprises need to take this ad-hoc use forward and integrate their IT service management facilities with the appropriate social media.

Follow CIO Australia on Twitter: @CIO_Australia