Dolphin Music's Rob Williams Dead After Rescue Frenzy on Twitter

Detail of the rescue operation was played out through updates on the social networking site Twitter.

Swiss police said Mr Williams' body was found in a stream at the foot of a cliff near the resort, in the Valais region.

Urgent appeals were posted by her on the Twitter website and Mr Tavaria, also 29, sent his friends and rescue teams a GPS satellite navigation signal from his iPhone, which pinpointed his location. He was rescued six hours later.

Mr Williams, however, had fallen 66ft down a cliff on to rocks below and due to the "white-out" conditions, a rescue helicopter could not be scrambled. Search teams on foot found him seven hours after he had gone missing, by which time the businessman had died in the freezing conditions.

After the initial posts left on Twitter, there was a long period of silence as the tragic death of Mr Williams became known.

Dewberry triggered the online rescue on Twitter when she wrote: : "2 of our ski party been missing since 4pm. Conditions terrible. 1 guy found but trapped. 20 man team searching for other."

He wrote: "Urgent: If anyone has or knows Rob Williams of Dolphin Music's mobile, please send. Mtn rescue in progress."

The post was followed by another update which read: "Rob's number rec'd via Twitter; Jason now found using GPS / Google maps & phone (@joshmarch org'd); still working on finding Rob."

TechCrunch UK website editor and Twitter member Mike Butcher posted a series of messages on the site during Tuesday.

He wrote: "I just got off the phone to one member of the trip. They said: 'Everyone literally said they'd just had the best time on the trip. And then it went straight to the opposite. We are all in shock'."