Social Media platforms are essential emergency information tools
Amplify’d from www.bostonherald.com
Future of crisis response: social networks
Social media Web sites — used this week in Japan by survivors of the earthquake and tsunami to communicate — are becoming key disaster response tools.
By Brendan Lynch
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - Updated 5 hours ago
“Before social media, it was difficult for normal people to talk to more than a few people in real-time,” said Dan Zarrella, “social media scientist” at Cambridge marketing firm Hubspot.
As land lines and mobile phone networks became overwhelmed, Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Skype offered victims of the earthquake and tsunami ways to get relief information and contact friends and family.
Authorities and civilians alike can use microblogging — the publishing of brief “status updates” — to “broadcast” messages, making it a natural fit for emergencies.
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The recent disasters in Japan showed the quick and handy use of social media such as twitter and facebook where people in Japan broadcasts their status and some even helped via directing efforts via information for rescuers.
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