I read a fascinating article on how blogs and social networking sites helped to get the word out in the earthquake in China this week, and will probably help keep the Chinese government honest in their assessments.
Twitter apparently broke the news that the earthquake was happening before it even reached USGS's site.
I think that's fascinating
Most of them were from the celebrated technology blogger Robert Scoble, who is famous, perhaps notorious, for receiving a Twitter message every second of the day.
He is based in California, but thousands of miles away from the quake he was providing breaking news about it, linking to sites like the BBC and the New York Times, even providing a first picture - though how authentic that is remains to be seen. He now claims that Twitter had the breaking news even before the United States Geological Survey, which provides early warnings of seismic events.
Let's see, as this story unfolds, whether this is the moment when Twitter comes of age as a platform which can bring faster coverage of a major news event than traditional media, while allowing participants and onlookers to share their experiences.
Now I use Twitter and Facebook (shortstack81, that's me on Twitter!) to document the everyday minutae of my very dull life, as do the tens of millions of others who do so. it's my own personal sitcodramedy, and frankly, I rather like it. Don't judge me. It adds flavor to a rather ennui-filled existance.
But apparently, as a rock formation 6 miles below Siuchan heaved violently yesterday, those same people who just a few hours before were talking about that hot guy or girl in line in front of them at the cafe became front line reporters.
You can read more here. Actually, this article is a must read.
Twitter is easy to use. Just a text message (160 characters or so.) I generally don't receive messages back from Twitter except from the Obama campaign which is always fun. But as we've seen in a number of disasters as of late, the cell network can still send text messages out when almsot all else (we do need more Ham radio operaters though. They'll still function when even the text messages fail.)
Andy Carvin thinks Twitter can help save lives.
Fast forward many moons, and now we have text messaging tools like Twitter, Mozes and others that were developed simply for people to keep in touch and have fun. I can't say I'm surprised that's how these tools are developing, because it's a hell of a lot easier to get venture capital from investors when you're creating a tool that would be the darling of teenagers everywhere. Now that these tools are slowly maturing, though, I think it's worth asking the question again: might text messaging groups serve any purpose in times of public emergencies?
My gut tells me yes. Take this hypothetical situation. Well before any disaster, groups of first-responders would set up accounts on Twitter, then mark each other as friends. After that, they might remain dormant until a disaster happens, but then they'd fire up their mobile phones and start texting each other through Twitter's shortcode. Almost instantaneously, messages would get routed to everyone in the group, allowing them to keep in touch with each other even when other networks crash.
I'm skeptical of this of course. However I think that this is perhaps one of the new mediums that can be used to get information out of an area without electricity in a disaster. Something to keep in mind.
(I'm still reminded by the last sizeable earthquake in the Bay Area. Nothing on any of the newsnetworks, yet a diary popped up almost within seconds of it happening. Seconds after that, all my friends who live in the Bay Area and who are on Facebook updated their statuses. This is a medium with some value, I think.)