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Even a role for Twitter in a disaster
By WDavidStephenson | August 3, 2007
I’ve been pondering for 
a while about what to write about the role Twitter might play in emergency communication during a disaster or terrorist attack.
On one hand, it can provide the kind of real-time, location-based information that’s sine qua non in my book for networked homeland security. On the other, the typical deathless prose that users share about what they’re doing right now is along the lines of
“That was a good sandwich,”
or “being an adult can be difficult at times” (tell me about it….).
Like wow.
However, I ran across an item on Metroblogging Minneapolis by blogger Erica M, posted less than an hour after the collapse, in which she says she found out about the disaster from Twitter:
“I found out via Twitter. Got about five in a row, within 30 seconds. That’s crazy. And pretty cool.”
Given that example, I can see that if Twitter users can transcend their obsessive navel-gazing during a disaster, those on the spot could provide invaluable information via SMS messages to their social networks and others could respond with questions or other information.
One more information source for authorities to monitor in a disaster!
Technorati tags:
homeland security War on Terror antiterrorism smart mobs swarm intelligence emergent behavior networked homeland security government IT collaboration location-based services geo-spatial web web 2.0 homeland security 2.0 disaster management 2.0 crowd-sourcing Minneapolis e-democracy I-35W disaster planning Twitter social networking
Topics: technology, empowering public, collaboration, e-gov transformation, networked security | |
