Red Cross Chat

-W. David Stephenson 

Hi! I’m honored to be a guest blogger this week, especially given the full plate of hurricanes facing the southeast!

It’s not well known, but even during Katrina and 9/11 in Manhattan, text messages were often able to get through when conventional, especially broadcast and landline, communications failed.

Why? Because, going over the Internet, they’re packet- and IP-based and are so short that they consume miniscule bandwidth and can route around network disruptions and still arrive at their destination.

As cellphones (and, even more important, camera- and video-phones, because of their visual capabilities!), smartphones, wi-fi laptops become ubiquitous, more and more of us instinctively turn to applications we use every day such as Twitter, Utterz, and Flickr to share information in emergencies, as was the case during the San Diego wildfires last fall, and, this week, with Gustav.

The American Red Cross definitely gets it about the importance of these tools: I’m particularly impressed with the Safeandwell Twitter channel for reporting lost and found relatives!

Hopefully, police and fire officials will begin to automatically check Twitter, Flickr and others (my new favorite is Qik, because it lets you provide a combination of visual and voice “situational awarenes” via streaming, live, location-based uploads).

The number and range of these applications continues to increase — driven particularly by the growing power and versatility of wireless devices. I hope you’ll go to the Wireless Foundation’s website, learn about the tips on smart cellphone use I created for them, and be ready to use them in an emergency!