However, Gillan cautions against getting caught up in the current social networking hype and frenzy. “Peoples’ plates are pretty full in the public safety arena at present”, he warns. “There’s more and more data out there that could be useful in public safety, but you need to understand and validate both operational and technology concerns before investing in these new approaches.”

Volunteer community

While public safety organizations are following their own social networking paths – often constrained by increasingly tight budgets or legal constraints – the often forgotten ‘white’ side volunteer community of the Internet has been extremely active in recent years as a force for good in a number of highly innovative ways. 

Ben Proctor (www.benproctor.co.uk), a consultant and trainer in digital skills for emergencies, explains where one of the more significant of these emerged from. “One of the building blocks of this new environment is called Ushahidi.com, essentially then an SMS-based crowd-sourcing platform, first created to track disputes and outbreaks in violence during the 2008 elections in Kenya. That’s grown over the last few years to become the basis for a global team of volunteers who can track incidents as they occur in real-time using Twitter, SMS, email and the web and report back to aid organizations and the United Nations so that resources can be applied quickly and efficiently.

“Tied into this are other activities that such as crisis mapping – such as in the Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquake, where people could be kept informed of the status of water and power supplies, cellular or Wi-Fi coverage and other factors as the city recovered. Volunteers can contribute from any place on the planet, aim to mobilize within four hours and remain involved for two weeks before usually handing over to an established body such as the UN.”

Ushahidi has played a major role in recent events such as the Libyan civil war, the Haiti earthquake and more recently, is helping to track displaced populations in Somalia through crowd-sourced analysis of satellite imagery. A similar voluntary approach is being taken in the US to deal with disasters called the Virtual Operator Support Team and a similar initiative is being explored in the UK at present.

For those outside certain demographic groups, some aspects of social networking may represent the power of the Internet at its most banal and consumerist. On the other hand, social networking could become a real force for social and individual good.