Archive for June, 2010

CAL Fire was recently featured on Fire Department Network News for the addition of their Public Information Officer marked SUV. View the video report below, and pay special attention to what PIO Mike Mohler says about his role and activities regarding Social Media:

From the associated article with my own added emphasis:

CAL FIRE’s PIO vehicles are outfitted with Tough Books. Not only can they get information on the call that they are going to, but they can update their Twitter site, blogs and other websites.

Social media plays a large part in the distribution of public information. Many of CAL FIRE’s followers are gathering information from social media before they turn on the news channel or look in their newspapers.

It’s great seeing agencies understand where information distribution is going. Taking the initiative to serve their communities where they are gathering and to use the community as an asset instead of a liability is the direction we all should be headed.

You can read the CAL Fire San Diego Blog, follow them on Twitter, or check out their Flickr Sets which are quite compelling

Recently Twitter made some announcements that are meant to better shape the development focus of its future. One of those announcements was posted on their blog where they made it clear that Twitter is no longer just a micro-blogging service, but rather a communication platform. One result of this change was their internal development of applications, including a mobile client that is available for both iPhone and Android OS smart phones. Besides the fact that this is now the “official” Twitter client for Android, you’re probably wondering what could make it so different from the TwiDroid or Seesmic mobile clients. The truth is, there are quite a few differences!

Functionality & Usability

The home screen is absolutely incredible, and animated! The top level menu breaks the app into the six primary components of the Twitter service: Tweets, Mentions, Direct Messages, Lists, Retweets, and your Profile. Additionally, the home screen animation gives you a glimpse into the Trending Topics list that is easily accessible with an onscreen page flip motion, or for the specific topic a simple tap on it will bring you to a results page.

Sending a tweet is extremely easy, with the input box designed specifically to sit atop the onscreen keyboard without covering over any functionality. This is a small but often overlooked detail that Twitter has addressed, and it’s that type of extra effort spent on the details of the user interface that really sets this app apart as you’ll see from the next feature I’m about to talk about…

Share It All & Push It Good

Twitter has seemingly always played host in a semi-symbiotic relationship with Facebook. Over the years Facebook has adopted many of Twitter’s practices such as the News Feed that was derived from the Twitter Timeline, vanity URLs for their user profiles to mimic Twitter’s user profiles, and of course using the at sign (@) to initiate user tagging in Status Updates similar to Twitter’s user inspired Reply feature.

In the Android app, Twitter finally has the opportunity to “borrow” back with the cornerstone Facebook tenet of sharing. Depending on the other apps installed on your phone, the Twitter app will allow you to share a tweet via G-Mail, Facebook, SMS Messaging, Google Buzz, and ironically itself. Sharing a tweet via the application provides a message formatted like this:

David Konig (@davidkonig) has shared a Tweet with you:

“cnnbrk: Severe weather kills 4 in Ohio. http://on.cnn.com/cEC33d”
–http://www.twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/15561566108

In addition to this sharing capability, the Twitter app also provides built in push notifications. You can set the refresh interval and whether you want to be notified of all tweets, replies, and/or direct messages. Push notification is really a must have in todays communication applications, and surprisingly the Twitter app does not provide this feature on its iPhone version.

Not For The Power User

The one drawback of the Twitter app for Android is that it only allows you to use the application with one account. While this may not seem like a huge drawback to personal users, it does severely limit its use for the power user who is a member of a Social Media Team. Power users will probably still find Seesmic the best app for managing multiple Twitter accounts, but still have the option of using the Twitter app functionality for the account that would benefit most from it.

In Conclusion

The Twitter built application for Android is feature packed and blinged out beyond any other third party developed app. This is an example of building on a vision by merging the gamut of their features into a usable mobile extension of their core service. We can only hope that other services will follow suit for ALL the mobile platforms.

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We have a new episode of our award deserving podcast ready for you to listen to and enjoy! This episode Greg and Dave are joined by Mark Basnight of The Crisis Communications Network. Here us discuss:

• The Social Media 4 Responders Conference
• September 13 and 14 2010 at the Hilton Charlotte University Place in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Specifically created with the Responder in mind
• Law enforcement, emergency medical services, fire service, emergency management, public health, disaster & crisis aid, and public utilities can all benefit from a Social Media presence
• Featuring hands on workshops designed to jump start a Social Media Presence
• Traditional conferences expect you to learn by listening, SM4Responders will help you to learn by doing
• The AT&T announcement that they were ending the $30 a month unlimited iPad data plan is calling into question the iPad’s ability to remain dominant in the newly rejuvenated tablet market as numerous Android OS and Windows Mobile tablets are on the verge of being announced
• Bambuser is an application that lets you stream live video from your smart phone
• Social media efforts for the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill include a hub site, Twitter account, and a Facebook page
• If you ever needed an example as to why you need to create a Social Media presence before the crisis, the unofficial, unauthorized, and hugely popular BPGlobalPR Twitter account should be evidence enough

Want to listen while you’re on the go?

Thanks for listening!

As the oil leak at the BP Deepwater Horizon site continues into day 43, there is a now an application available for both the iPhone and Android OS phones to help assist collecting data and sharing it to aid the cleanup and recovery efforts underway along the coastal regions affected by the oil.

Oil Reporter is a pretty simple idea. We want people to share what they see and to allow that information to be shared with everyone. We believe that if people share what they see and that information can be placed on a map, it can help organizations and communities with their response efforts. – OilReporter.org About Page

Oil Reporter takes a page from Twitter’s base question of “What are you doing?” and changes it into “What do you see?” The application provides a very basic description box for collecting a text narrative about where you are and what you are seeing as it pertains to the areas under siege by the crude oil. The application takes advantage of the multiple media creation tools that smart phones provide and promotes the attachment of photos of your location as a visual reference for your report. For those who are text shy, the application allows you to utilize a slider to rate how much oil you see. The slider asks you to rank the sight of oil from 0 (open water) to 10 (thick oil).

The application does not just ask for information about actual oil on the shores, but also about the area wildlife and what effect the oil is having on their living conditions. There is a drop down box asking for the status of the area’s wildlife and a second slider asking for the reporter to document the effect the oil is having on the area’s wetlands. Both of these more focused inquiries address the main concerns of the citizenry and can become crucial in directing clean up efforts as the situation continues to unfold.

Oil Reporter not only takes information, but reciprocates the exchange by providing an easy option to view their Twitter feed from within the application and they also provide easy access to volunteer opportunities in the four states thus far affected by the oil spill.

Overall, this crowdsourcing initiative via application is utilizing the citizenry instead of considering them as liabilities, which is something that FEMA has been pushing emergency managers towards.

Oil Reporter was created through the joint efforts of Intridea, Appcelerator, and Crisis Commons