@setrains.bsky.social... perhaps a truly embryonic account for South Eastern Trains.

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/setrains.bsky.social

 
Transpennine Express may have appeared - as @TPExpressTrains - but will have paused their account as it's not currently visible.

@railwayheritage.bsky.social referred to it.

Mark

 
'Ah' times two. Transport for Wales arrived a few days ago.

Mark


https://bsky.app/profile/tfwrail.bsky.social

 
Ah, now settled to this for the time being.

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/gwruk.bsky.social

 

That is them trying to use their own domain name 

 
GWR have arrived on Bluesky, as @gwruk.bsky.social, tho' the tail end of the bsky link to it is curious for the time being. "did:plc:pw223uaa6slgbvm2gmmfkrz3" - what's that about?

Mark

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:pw223uaa6slgbvm2gmmfkrz3

 
One option, having created the account, is to set it to be inactive - Bluesky does not expire inactive accounts after say 30 days as some other social media platforms do.

Mark

*Edit* Checked this and yes, this is still the case, inactive accounts are simply put on the shelf and are not at threat of deactivation.

https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app/post/3ku74woxysv2d

 

My bolding.    Darn it - that was not really ready to be shouted about yet!  Please go ahead, follow - but if you want to message / interact with the main membership it's here on the Coffee Shop itself.

https://bsky.app/profile/greatwesternrailway.info



We don't know whether Blue Sky is here to stay, or another transient  or something specialist which is not our speciality / nationality such as MySpace or Mastadon - but it is worth our while having a pointer there. Their use of domain names as handles means we are secure with our names once we have the web domain - so there's interesting scope in other places we own namespace too.

 

Indeed.

https://bsky.app/profile/lnerail.bsky.social/post/3layklpn5bs2l

For the moment, they need to discover the 'Your domain in your account name' thing.

And, for the time being, a search on Bluesky for GWR, the Coffeeshop account (which clearly identifies that it's not the TOC itself) is top of the list.

Mark

 

LNER registered today

 

Now 17. :-)

Mark

 

I registered personally yesterday ( @grahamellis.bsky.social )  ... big review of all my social media and direction for next year

 
Bristol Rail Campaign has seen a sixteen-fold increase in the number of followers on its Bluesky account in the last month. It now has 16 followers. But it’s probably no bad thing to be prepared!

 
There are no TOCs yet visible on BlueSky - but plenty of rail staff & associates like Gareth Dennis.

 
Update 1: Bluesky is seeing account creation is abruptly running at around 1 million per day and is about to look in the rear view mirror and see the figure 16,000,000. The  majority of this growth may be from the USA, but the UK is also represented. https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats

Update 2: if anyone here recalls the experience of being in the UK and using was it a teletype to connect to a mainframe or database in the USA at around 4 in the afternoon and experiencing the grim response times, Bluesky's web site has the same flavour today.

Update 3: there are reports that various TOCs including GWR have accounts set up on Bluesky in readiness to activate them when appropriate**.

Mark

**That time is about now imho, 'cos, reasons.

 
First post in this topic for 96 days, and  the world of short-form social media continues to evolve.

Bluesky's up to 14.5 million. David Horne (MD of LNER) has created a personal account on the platform**.

Mark

** Sorry, couldn't resist.

 
Thinking of the short form text social media, a solution is for organisations to use a service agnostic software package to manage contacts across the lot. I've noooooh idea what software the current set of ex-tocs, rail organisations, bus companies, have settled on for this.

Mark

 

And that's an example of where in the future there is so much scope for brilliant or diabolical service under 'GBR".     At one extreme, you can look at the early social media work at GWR by the team who set that up, and at the other extreme the service offered through help points across the nation.

I am getting to be an old cynic and I fear it can get really tied up in buraucracy when it gets into public sector rules.   Yesterday, 6th August 2024, I finally got clearance on the wording for a memorial plaque on a bench in the park - request made on 17th January 2023 and been through six different management and administration officers at the Town Council.  All done under a new policy from 2022 that was supposed to make this clear and consistent.  I fear similar with enquiries about trains - the train will have long since arrived into (or is that arrived at?) it's final destination before the question is acknowldeged, to be answered within 10 working days.

 
Their use has certainly changed and understandably so, some whose responses feel as though they're confined to a set of constrained scripts, others whose staff are given the backing to exercise their own judgement.

Mark

 

It would be very interesting to know whether companies will be involved at all. Very interesting to look at user base sizes and transaction rates from time to time - this is around the world.




Source - https://explodingtopics.com/blog/top-social-media-platforms

 
An engaging & thoughtful nine minute listen from one Alex Andreou, on the subject of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Mark

https://dcs-cached.megaphone.fm/SANDSTONEGLOBALPRODUCTIONSLTD9524174004.mp3

 
Railway companies were early adopters in the positive use of social media to enhance the service they provide. It would be interesting to know their plans for the immediate future. An issue is... the choice of platforms on which to maintain a presence.

I'm thinking currently of Musk's 'X' - given its user base and overlap with their customers, they probably need to continue to be active there. However, given that it's increasingly troubled, it might be good for them to be providing for people who've moved to the likes of Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon.

There are presumably tools out there that avoid the admin task exploding times ten. (One such is 'Buffer' - free for individual use, it's a crossposting tool and I'm about to check whether it's a listening tool too...)

Mark