△ MENU/TOP △

Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
SearchClose Icon

Text messages to the rescue

We all know the part blogs have played in the aftermath of the South Asia disaster. Less attention is being accorded SMS, the cell phone text messaging system. The BBC has an article that sheds light on how text messaging aided recovery efforts. Some of the earliest blog reports about the tsunami were repurposed SMS messages sent by people on the scene to friends with blogs.

The experience has led to the development of the Alert Retrieval Cache, which (so far) uploads a text message to a Web page or distributes it to an e-mail list. Using the system, a relief worker identifying a specific need could send a text message to the Cache, which distributes it. “In the near future,” the article notes, “the group says it hopes to take in messages from people in affected areas, and use human moderators to take actions based on the content of those messages.”

01/05/05 | 0 Comments | Text messages to the rescue

Comment Form

« Back