Twitter to the rescue
I read on the CNET News blog this morning that Google.org are now investing in Twitter and Facebook in an effort to aid the Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD) organisation.
In a previous post (see Twitter, a fantastic waste of time) I suggested that Osama and pals might use the technology to aid their differences against our American bretheren, or perhaps ‘Twittter consoles’ might be used for tactical precision strikes on the caves in the Tora Bora mountains, so it’s nice that someone has thought of a much more pleasant and socially positive use for the technology!
Apparently the chaps at Google are talking about extending the usefulness of their already Uber Cool ‘Google Earth’ desktop program so that it can interface with Twitter and Facebook via mobile phones to warn of emergencies globally. At last! Twitter will be useful for something other than the daily mumblings of the masses worldwide!
Me? Well I love seeing technology being put to good use… let’s face it if the World’s governments weren’t obsessed with bigger and better ways of killing people we would all be travelling to the stars by now in big shiny spaceships, or at least we would all have decent roads to drive our water powered cars on instead of the pot-holed mess that we all pay billions in tax every year to use!
If Twitter, or any other web technology can be used for good then bravo and long may it continue. Let’s just hope that the administration up in that big white house don’t read my original twitter post and get any ideas!
