Tuesday, October 30, 2012

(More) Tech and #Sandy (part 5)

Still more examples of technology communities' contributions to, and use of social media by, hurricane #Sandy relief efforts. Earlier posts from yesterday and this morning.

1) Senator Gillibrand tweeted out about #NYC volunteering coordination via email and Facebook:


2) Here's the volunteer sign up page being circulated by New York City Public Advocate's office. The Mayor's Office is encouraging people who want to volunteer to use NYC Service.

3) While every natural disaster recovery effort has its share of fundraising scams, #sandy gave us "social media scams" - as BuzzFeed explains in "outing" a tweeter who was spreading false information about the state of the situation in NYC. The equivalent of "shouting fire in a movie theater," says BuzzFeed. I'm still thinking about that.

4) Perhaps it's just my filters, but I didn't receive a fundraising pitch for #sandy relief efforts until an email press release arrived at Noon (pdt) on Tuesday, telling me all the SMS short codes I could use to text a donation.

5) Here is FourSquare tracking of #Sandy's impact. There is also a group called Aftermathpocalypse built on FourSquare and showing photos and check-ins.

6) And here's a quick list of foundations acting on behalf of disaster relief, courtesy of Grantmakers in the Arts.

7) Some New Yorkers, but not all, got emergency alerts on their cell phones. Here's how it worked.

8) Finally, in recognition of just how dependent we've become on cell service and internet connectivity, here's a report covering the storm's impact on NYC based operations of Verizon, Google, Cablevision and others.


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