December 29, 2004
Use SMS for mass public alert -- not just to rake in revenue
Unfortunately, despite the ubiquity of cellphones in southeast Asia, text-messaging wasn't sufficiently harnessed to notify people of the coming tsunamis, reports The Wall Street Journal.
"Malaysian blogger Jeff Oi valuably chronicles how information was -- and wasn't -- quickly shared. "Knowing the fact that tsunami struck Krabi and Phuket (Southern Thailand) about one hour before it did Penang, news portals and TV stations could have informed the public about the danger of a looming tsunami on Malaysian shores facing the Indian Ocean. ... Looks like our telco and media organisations should have a rethink: Use SMS for mass public alert -- not just to rake in revenue.
Picture from a related story in MSNBC on "How scientists watch for killer waves".
cf related Tsunami/cell phone stories posted in Textually.org.
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