Pradeep C
Internet Entrepreneur with 9+ Years of hands-on Online Marketing Experience
Mumbai (India) Terror Attacks: How did Social Media Help?
I am sure all of know about the unfortunate and unimaginable terror attacks on Mumbai (details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks). Many of you would also know about the role played by Social Media in helping the friends & families of the victims and in helping connect the whole world.
In order to accelerate the rescue operations, let's capitalize further on the power of Social Media. Would you please share the examples and the success stories you know about how Social Media came alive in the need of the hour? Let's contribute our bit.
E.g. Twittering came as the source of reliable and real time information about the situation especially for the global audience - http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/mumbai.twitter/index.html
Answers (7)
Check this link to see the extent social media is contributing in these difficult times
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122778233204561595.html
Also check out the efforts by Pinstorm
http://helpmumbai.pinstorm.com
Social Media has definitely helped to raise awareness about what is actually happening. But the more important question to address is how can social media help?
I think Social Media can provide a great platform to reach people and large and spread a message of love. In my view the question is not what happened and how will you combat if it happens again, but really why did it happen?
In my view social media provides a great platform to reach people of all religions, nationalities and sects, and request them all to come together. The person we call as terrorist is really someone who thinks he is a victim and is now seeking his revenge (In his nook he is known as a Martyr)
WE, our ancestors, our generations have done a lot of wrong against each other. We have hurt each other badly and now we are all fuill of hatred.
I take this opportunity (as a hindu, as an Indian and more importantly as a human) to apologize to everyone around the world for whatever wrong has happened to them. Lets take this opportunity to spread peace and love.
Lets APOLOGIZE and FORGIVE..
Greg P
President ♦ Bluefin Productions Inc.
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Interesting what happened. While IO don't have a direct story, I would like to say that Social Media and many instant media types are not accurate.
I have taken a bunch of FEMA training courses, and participated in many events. One of the things we hear all the time in the training, and then find out when the real thing happens, is that the single hardest thing in the early stages of an event is to get good reliable information. time and again it is proven.
I just read some after action (actually not after action as some of it is still gong on) reports is that the Twitter info and iReporter stuff on CNN was largely inaccurate.
Again, first hand info and eyewitness reports get confused and misunderstood. Often it is the witness who has inaccurate accounts or details wrong. The speed, shock and distress usually cause people to believe incidents happened that did not or combine two or more details. Just a fact of the way the mind works; it's hyperfocus.
That said, I wonder how to take advantage of the medium. Email, live chat, SMS and texting are valuable assets. In their place.
I agree with Greg's comments about reliability of this information. I think it is very important to get the information from reliable sources. Please take a look at my blog entry http://hummingbytes.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/mumbai-terrorist-attack/
This is where I have put my thoughts about Emergency System.
This is not an end-to-end solution for everybody but I think it might have helped to reduce some confusion amongst people who got affected.
Social Media sites definitely came handy as they were providing immediate report about the happenings from the affected sites. The power of Social media could have been explored more to assist in relief measures. No doubt the awareness is growing amongst the people, but we still have a long way to go before these tools could be exploited in totality. You may follow the link to my blog to read, "Twitter on Toes"
Links:
I Think Twitter was a good news source only to the western media. With around 4500 members from India you cannot expect it to be the voice of the 60 million strong Indian internet Population. I think blog posts sprang up all across which I am sure would have driven the emotions of many. In that sense I feel blog posts did a much better job on Social media with the topic being the most blogged one for at least 2-3 days on Blog searches.
Now, I see strong mobilization happening through facebook where communities are joining hands in their silent protests against terror. Does this drive change in this nation remains to be seen.
Spreading information rapidly. However it is hard to separate truth from lies and rumors. Someday it may be misused by terrorists too. Remember Information minister of Iraq?
