Twitter as an Emergency Broadcast System

Several months back, James Buck tweeted as he was led off to an Egyptian prison. (I'm still shocked he retained his cell phone.) His quick message, "Arrested," alerted his friends and followers who knew he was in Egypt. A quick chain of events followed, resulting in Buck's release.

Yesterday, a childless Chinese "citizen journalist," armed with a Blackberry, was taken into custody briefly as being suspected of breaking the 1-child-per-family rule in the country. He was able to tweet the entire event using Twitterberry. Upon reading his tweets, it seems almost like he wanted a record of the event as opposed to a cry for help. Regardless, arrested --> tweeted. (Who are all these cops who let the suspects retain their phones?)

Are either of these true emergency situations? Maybe not. But remember, Twitter tracked the slight Midwest earthquake, the recent California earthquake, and the devastating China earthquake. Trapped in a collapsed building, alive, will you think to tweet for help? I suspect I'd try to call folks before I'd tweet, but I suppose it's a thought.Twitter has the power to reach hundreds, perhap thousands, of people at once.

According to The Industry Standard (6/23/08), James Buck was so impressed by his Twitter chain reaction that he has met with Biz Stone of Twitter about creating a Twitter Emergency Management System.

The interesting thing to us was that Buck found Twitter in Egypt, not in the Bay Area," said Twitter’s co-founder, Biz Stone, who met with James briefly last Friday to talk about how such a network could be integrated with the Twitter service. Stone said there are activists in Egypt who are already using Twitter in creative ways. "Activists get wind that someone is going to be picked up, they send a Twitter message, and 100 people show up outside the house ... to intimidate the police."

However, Buck recognizes that the system still needs improvements in order to function in the way he envisions. “The problem is right now you can’t send a message to a specific group of users,” he says. Buck suggested that tags might be used to direct messages to specific networks.

According to Stone, the reason his short message worked so well was that there was "No subject, no body, one line, you just do it," Stone says. "Decisions up front are potentially distracting."

Last fall, the San Diego wildfires were Twittered. Several Twitter users started tweeting evacuation plans, meetups, and other things about the fires. The LA Times established a special Twitter account (@latimesfires) just for wildfire information. Taking that one step further, the LA Fire Department continuously twitters about fires - events, their statuses, and related events such as road closings (@LAFD).

How does all this work? If you're evacuating do you have your laptop fired up? No. But you probably have your cell phone. The ultimate briliance of Twitter is that it can be completely mobile.

Last November, my husband and I were in Arizona. We had an incident where we were lost and stranded in the desert, on the side of a mountain. I fully admit - I tried to twitter. i couldn't place a call without dropping instantly, but I thought I might be able to get out a single tweet. My thoughts? At least someone would know what happened to us and perhaps communicate it back to those who cared. I certainly couldn't tweet for help, not knowing exactly where we were located. I managed to get out some tweets, although they were slightly garbled.

What are your thoughts on Twitter as an emergency management system?