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Nepal Earthquake: Facebook To Google, How Tech Is Helping Survivors Reach Out
An anonymous reader writes: In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Nepal, many social media sites and mobile applications have come up with features that could help locate friends and loved ones. From the Times of India: "Social networking website Facebook, and Google's Person Finder have helped locate the whereabouts of those stranded in quake-hit areas. For instance, members of one Himmatramka family residing in Birgunj in Nepal marked themselves safe on Facebook. 'Our relatives back in India were worried about our safety. So, we marked ourselves safe to inform them,' said Nitesh Himmatramka.
Just be prudent although, every catastrophe like this one bring along a bunch of people how are just trying to make a buck out of it. Don't get scammed.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
If you have 2 friends, then emailing all both of them makes sense. When you have hundreds, making one small setting on FB and getting back to important stuff makes a little more sense.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Honestly, my take is that this feature on Facebook / Google makes a lot of sense. How many people would think to first check the Red Cross website first (or specifically, the site you linked to, which I couldn't seem to find via the main site)? People are much more likely to *first* check Facebook to see if their family or friends have posted an update. These are social networks already in place, so why not use them for an important feature that's obviously "social" in nature?
The Red Cross feature is fantastic for people who aren't already hooked up with Google or Facebook. But honestly, who wants to do that when they can click a single button on their already-used social network of choice, versus the battery of personal data you have to enter at the Red Cross? Consider the Facebook or Google feature as a first-line system. If a person doesn't mark themselves safe, family members can then register them as a missing person on the Red Cross site.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.