Twitter Saves the Day
Monday, March 1, 2010
A women was able to track down her missing sister-in-law though the help of Twitter and a helpful stranger.
After the Chile Earthquake many people were missing family members and loved ones. Because power and phone lines were down in many areas around Santiago, Sheryl Brueker, a sister-in-law to a Chilean earthquake survivor, attempted to call, text, and e-mail Maria Alica Moya.
"Any info on Maria Alica Moya, please update http://tinyurl.com/yfjtzed or contact @kencamp or @sherylbreuker ASAP #chile #quake," was one of her frantic tweets to find her lost sister.
She was contacted several hours later by a stranger who lived in that area. Through Twitter correspondence the man went to the address that Brueker had given him for her sister-in-laws place of residence. The man went to look for the lost wife and sister-n-law.
"found her she is OK... she told me to tell Twinkie to stay cool, she is fine," within two hours Brueker received a Direct Message on Twitter from the man.
"I am so thankful for social media, grateful to the power of networking and beyond ecstatic my sister-in-law was safe and her home intact." wrote Breuker. This amazing story really illustrates the power of social networks in crisis situation. They can provide communication when other modes of communication can not.
5 comments:
There is another tweet going around about a missing high school girl from San Diego. With the recent phishing scam regarding Twitter, it is nice to hear some good news coming out of the social media site. This story goes to show the impact these sites have throughout the world.
What an amazing story. I think it's really wonderful to hear stories lke this showing how today's social media is being used in such a positive way, since it seems that most of the time only the stories portraying social media in a negative light make the news.
That is awesome. I currently know of a person from my home town that is a student at Iowa State and he has been missing for a long time. I wonder if anyone has tried to advertise for him this way and it will definitely be something I mention to my other friends at Iowa State as a possible search option.
I'm glad to see that social media aren't just being used for socialization anymore, but are actually helping people. I know that Twitter was used many times in searching for people after the earthquake in Haiti. It's good to see that using networking sites to help others is starting to become a trend.
It seems that as further society is getting into twitter, the better an outcome. There are a lot of fake and phishing accounts so i agree with Amber. Finally a positive thing out of social media. I like how it was just more than facebook groups that just show support, this person actually took the time to find the person. I am glad that there are people out there like that.
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