This Is Not a Test: The Emergency Alert System Is Worthless Without Social Networks

Originally posted on 17Nov11 to IBM Developerworks (11,306 Views)

This makes for an interesting comparison to the National Emergency Warning System (NEWS) that was implemented in Australia last year as a result of the Black Saturday  bushfires.
Here is the URL for this bookmark: gizmodo.com/5857897/this-is-not-a-test-the-emergency-alert-system-is-worthless-without-social-networks
This makes for an interesting comparison to the National Emergency Warning System (NEWS) that was implemented in Australia last year as a result of the Black Saturday  bushfires.  Of particular interest is that the USA have avoided the SMS channel when in Australia, that has been the primary channel – alternates like TV and Radio are seen as not as pervasive and thus a lower priority.  I don’t think that NEWS here in Oz is connected to twitter, facebook, foursquare or any other social networking site either, but that could be an extension to NEWS – the problem is getting everyone to “friend” the NEWS system so that they see updates and warnings!

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