Social Media Works With Disaster

As I read Fast Company this morning I came across an interesting article about how social media had been working with the Haiti Earthquake aftermath to provide various tools to help all those interested and involved. With social media no longer used as a quick chat and photo share between friends, its true potential is shining through. As mentioned in the article, An eye-rolling bit of gossip about one of those Kardashian girls can explode through the Web in minutes--and now, news about those in Chile is traveling over the same digital pathways, with the same speed, reaching the same vast amount of people. Its quite fascinating how quickly and seemlessly information can travel across the world, essentially making it possible for someone sitting in the Library in Eugene to speak with someone in Haiti.

So what social tools are being used? The major ones they cover in the article include Google Person Finder, Google Maps layers, Twitter, Facebook, and UStream. All these are fascinating in their own right but I would like to speak more of the ones I had not known about, specifically Google Maps Layers and People Finder.



Google Maps Layers allows for custom made layers showing specific results. For example, say you are looking for a pet store, you can create a custom layer that lists only pet stores in a given area. In Haiti, people are using it as a means to find things and places that are much harder to find after the earthquake. For example, say you want to know what shops are still open, you can m,ake a layer for that. This is a very interesting tool that really connects people with their surroundings.

Google Person Finder is a tool/database where people upload records of when they saw people or what they heard about where they are. The information is not verifiable but with the all of the commotion going on in Haiti it is hard to obtain official records of missing people. This tool allows for people who do not know where their loved ones are to get up-to-date information about them.

Although disaster like this is saddening, it is relieving to see how much social media has united us as a planet. Just because it happened in a distant country doesn't mean we don't care. We live in a world where information is easily accessible throughout and this means we can help each other much easier as well.