In my lifetime I have not appreciated Social Media like I have over the last few days. It has been my only source of Hurricane News and ability to communicate with friends and family. I have always taken it for granted in the past. But now I have to really thank the likes of Facebook and Twitter for their services.
The great news is that these companies which are doing such good are making profits in these not so good times. It is really a great business model. You do the best when you are really helping people.
"General Sentiment says the total value of the storm’s online impact discussion may be worth over $80 million. Breaking it down, Twitter alone stands to make $60 million from the news about Sandy, while news media sites are expected to rake in an extra $12 million, with other social networks earning another $9.2 million."
It will be interesting to see if a social media site can monetize this even further by offering specific value added applications during a disaster. Like power outages. Or identifying shelters. Or provide certain tips. If during a disaster everyone came together one site the data would be very powerful.
Lots to think about. But most importantly, my hats off to the social media providers.
I completely agree. I started following Pat Kiernan from NY1 and his updates have been extremely informative and have created information for people without power but access to their mobile devices. Newsday published this article with impressive statistics of how social media has been involved with this disaster. Take a look, very interesting -
ReplyDeletehttp://newyork.newsday.com/news/hurricane-sandy-facebook-twitter-users-flock-to-sites-to-track-superstorm-1.4172535?qr=1