Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Facebook Trumps Media and Emergency Services During Disasters

by Tim Stevens on May 1, 2008 at 12:19 PM

Facebook Trumps Media, Emergency Services During DisastersThere's a disaster somewhere; homes are burning, tornadoes are spinning, a shooter is on the loose, flooding is rampant -- something like that. Where do you turn? Most would click on the local news and sit through the commercials hoping for an update. Others would turn on the radio and wait for an emergency broadcast to tell them what they need to know. More and more people, however, are turning to online services like Facebook, and according to researchers they are the ones who are keeping most informed.

The report found that, in the wake of disasters like last October's fires in Southern California and the Virginia Tech Shootings, which happened a year ago last month, bloggers, Twitterers, and Facebookers are reporting information about the emergencies more quickly and more efficiently than the local media. And, it's without the "lowest common denominator" spin that most media can fall into, zooming in on celebrity homes ablaze during the fires rather than discussing evacuation information, or endlessly repeating information about the shooter in the VT massacre instead of helping victims recover.

But, it seems, emergency services are starting to get the hang of things. The Red Cross took a hint from some amateur wildfire reporters and is now using Twitter to post information about emergencies. We're hoping FEMA maybe thinks about using Google Maps during the next emergency, which might just enable faster routing of emergency supplies to where they're needed.

Of course, none of these claims take into account power failures and Internet outages that occur as a result of these disasters. [Source: Daily Telegraph]

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, disaster tech, DisasterTech, facebook, fema, google, twitter

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular