Social media play part in Haiti's recovery efforts
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
Article URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-02-01-haiti-monitor-social-media_N.htm

WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department has joined the social-media movement and for the first time is reading Twitter posts, blogs and Internet forums to learn instantly about conditions in Haiti and send alerts to government agencies in the country.

The department's Haiti Social Media Disaster Monitoring Initiative is designed to get information more quickly to people involved in recovery efforts by tracking up to 60 Internet sites including Google Blog Search, The Huffington Post and Twitter, according to a department report.

"It's part of the way people communicate, so it should be part of the way we gain situational awareness," said Don Triner, acting director of Homeland Security's National Operations Center.

The center was created after 9/11 to be the government's primary eyes and ears about potential security threats, and to share information with emergency workers after an incident. The center expanded after Hurricane Katrina and monitors news websites and TV for information.

The social-media monitoring was used Jan. 21 when a center worker read a Twitter post about people buried under the Building Napolin in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, Triner said. The post read, "Let's save this life, someone is still alive under the rubble at Rue Centre, Building Napolin," and gave the building's latitude and longitude. The operations center forwarded the information to the State Department, which sent a rescue team to the building.

Before monitoring could start, the department had to assess whether the plan complied with privacy rules. It found no problems because the center is monitoring only public websites related to the earthquake recovery and is not storing any information or identifying any individual.

Homeland Security is not alone in using social media for rescue. The American Red Cross has received hundreds of posts about earthquake survivors on its Twitter and Facebook sites, said Wendy Harman, the department's social media manager.

The notices originated from victims in Haiti who sent text messages or made phone calls to friends and relatives in the USA.

"It was frustrating in the beginning to not really be expecting that kind of information to come in," Harman said. "After a couple of days we were able to figure out who was doing what on the ground (in Haiti) and route that information accordingly."



Wow! :) The power of social media! Remember the old tagline of starhub? "Power to the people". Indeed social media empowers the people of today. Like in the article, normal people on the ground can just update via twitter and facebook. Time is not wasted waiting for government officials' reports and such. Hence, resources and relief efforts can be dispense out much quicker than before!

Interestingly, while I was browsing through my subscribed feeds (via Google Reader) Fash-Eccentric had blog about getting funds for Haiti. There was also a site where we can get tweet updates from all around the world(including Haiti) with regards to Hope for Haiti.

Check it out at https://www.hopeforhaitinow.org/map/default.htm
(alternatively, click on the map below)

It is pretty cool! Real-time tweet conversations will pop up on the site. Can you imagine how many people are connected? How much resources can be gathered in a short amount of time. It is massive!

Besides using Twitter and Facebook, I have also recently picked up how to use RSS and Podcast!

RSS feeds are really convenient to use, as updates for all the hundreds and thousands of sites(okay maybe I do not read that many sites :X) are shown in my reader. Plus, it is super fast as compared to slowly looking through my bookmarks and clicking on sites on by one, some are not even updated.

However, I feel the joy of reading the blogs and sites that I visit daily is diminished as I am unable to see the design of the site. I am quite a visual and picture-based person, and I personally feel that the design of a site potrays its owner's taste and perhaps even some characteristics. The reader also does not allow me to use the tagboards and chatbox application which is on the site. So it kinds of lose that personal-touch. But I guess if you want news on the go and fast, for instance news/information from Channel NewsAsia Rss updates the reader is a great choice.

Podcast. Download it from your itunes and listen to it whenever you want to! :) Love it. I especially enjoy listening to our very own Mr.Brown. Go listen to the latest post about the Apple fanatic world! Inspired by Apple's recent ipad. I find it really funny, hahhaha. Because I am not really an Apple fan, neither do I own any apple product except for itunes. So yup, I do not really understand the Apple hype, like the iphone,ipod,ipad.

Social media is all around and I bet it's here to stay for a pretty long while! :)

1 Comments:

I didn't know that Twitter was used for relief efforts for the Hati's incident.. interesting read on it.
And thankd for the intro of this web:
https://www.hopeforhaitinow.org/map/default.htm
personallyfound it extremely useful for me to get more info on Hati.

As for the Rss, i agree with you it is rather useful.. i also subrscribe to it after learning it in com 125 class.. it was a cool application goodness!! i'm lovin it

Keep on posting love reading your post babe!

By  Angela Tang, at February 3, 2010 at 11:59 PM  

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