Friday, March 11, 2011

The Tsunami and the Internet

I can do little more than echo Melissa Bell and marvel:
Within hours of the earthquake, a Wikipedia page popped up with information on the event and a list of tsunami warnings. ...

Google created a people finder in Japanese and in English and deployed it shortly after the event. There are currently about 6,100 records ...

A map on Google marks possible shelters.

YouTube immediately started compiling citizen videos of the quake.

Ushahidi built a database to help those offering aid connect to those in need.

The speed of the development of "crowd-sourced" resources is pretty amazing. How many more lives would have been lost if this event had hit just five years earlier?

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