Friday 31 October 2014

Socially irresponsible


We're doing the tourist thing for a few days in the heart of England. 

Yesterday was torture at Alton Towers and today we're halfway through a day of industrial heritage. 

If I owned Alton Towers I'd want to maximise the social sharing being done by guests. It's a theme park where experience is what it's all about.  I'd want pictures of people pumped with adrenaline and videos of people trying to walk in a straight line after their inner ear balance control had become confused by a disorienting ride. I'd want Twitter and Facebook to be stuffed with images of people winning things, eating candy floss and conquering terrifying rides. 

People obviously need access to the internet to make this possible. We found that the 3G signal was very poor, perhaps due to the sheer volume of people. Alton Towers think they've overcome this by providing WiFi via The Cloud. What they don't realise is how shockingly bad this WiFi provision is. I'm an oversharer and I spent most of my day frustrated with lack of internet connection. I'd be flipping between a failure to connect via 3G and a failure to connect to the WiFi. 

I struggle to understand why the Alton Towers team haven't fixed this connection issue because social sharing is fantastic low cost advertising. 

The picture service they offer delivers your purchased image to a website. There is promotional material everywhere for this feature. It's just a shame they didn't think to invest in the infrastructure to support this functionality.

Today, by contrast, we've been in a museum which has zero 3G signal but free, good WiFi with no sign in required.

No comments: