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

Microsoft Vine Is Twitter for Emergencies

by Terrence O'Brien on April 28, 2009 at 05:19 PM

Microsoft Vine -- It's Like Twitter and the Emergency Broadcast System had a Baby

Microsoft is distracting itself with yet another non-Windows, non-Office product. This time, Microsoft appears to be trying to take on Facebook and Twitter with an alert- and message-oriented social networking tool called Vine.

Currently in beta testing in Seattle, Vine is squarely aimed at sharing emergency information and news feeds. A Vine widget sits on your desktop and displays a map of your community, news and alerts, and the statuses of connected friends and family. Vine seems to, more or less, combine an RSS feed reader (with information tailored to your specific locale), a status update system (like Twitter), and messaging (like Facebook) into a singular, pretty, Live Search Maps mash-up.

From the demo videos on the Vine Web site, it's clear that Microsoft envisions this as a tool for use during emergencies and moments of crisis. But we have to wonder if we need an emergency-only social networking tool. Sure, some the features are neat, and the idea of tying news alerts and updates from friends and family into a map-based tool sounds useful, but we're pretty sure you can do all of the same things with a Twitter-and-Google-Maps mash-up.



We'd also predict with near certainty that Vine is coming to Windows exclusively (at least, at first). That would mean that, if any community actually decided to rely on this tool for emergency coordination, Apple owners and Linux geeks would just be left behind to drown in the next hurricane or flood. [From: Seattle Times]

Tags: disaster, disaster tech, disasters, DisasterTech, emergency, microsoft, microsoft vine, MicrosoftVine, new products, NewProducts, social networking, SocialNetworking, top, upcoming, vine

Comments

1

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