Communicating the U Wisconsin Snowball Fight

I don't usually do current event announcements, but this one is too good to pass up. Actually, I don't usually have The Weather Channel on for a long period of time but we're having an awful storm on Cape Cod--the kind where my yard furniture blows around and I listen to TWC to find out how far it might go and when it's safe to set it upright again.
























The point is, however, that TWC knew that UWisconson Madison is closed today--a feed or manual monitoring, I don't know. However the local papers and broadcast outlets have picked it up also. Probably the first to know were students who quickly found out that their classes were canceled today!

A Facebook event page was quickly set up to announce a campus snowball fight at 2 p.m. I don't know what time the page was created but as of this writing about 1 p.m. EST, there are

• 5,482 confirmed guests
• 3,437 "maybe attending"
• 221 wall posts.

A lot of the wall posts are chatting about whether this could set a Guinness World Record and whether it's worth submitting. What I find even more fascinating is that a lot of the recent posts on the wall are from high school students. Are they already following the UW network and therefore picked up on the Facebook page at once? That probably beats all the paid advertising on the planet!

I made 2 screen captures, the first one something like an hour ago (I've been outdoors chasing yard furniture!). In that period of time the notice at the top of the posted image, **ESPN seeking videos" appeared. Ponder that!

I was already going to point out that this will be on the nightly news, and I wouldn't be surprised if CNN has it on live or at least has an Internet report before the event is over.

Note: While I was editing this someone from Madison located it! Wow!

Such is the power of instant, social-network-based communications!