In the face of devastating news happening far away, there is comfort in making a connection. And those connections often are made online among strangers who are sharing video, photos, stories or tweets about the devastation around them. Such is the case in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a city that was devastated by an earthquake last Tuesday, with tens of thousands feared dead.
While Twitter has had a growing role as a first-responder medium with breaking news, that role has grown this week into a major booster for giving. When the Red Cross said people could donate $10 by texting the word “Haiti” to 90999, those instructions were passed along virally via Twitter, helping raise more than $5 million for relief efforts. The Yele Haiti Foundation also used text messaging to raise more than $1 million; you can donate $5 by texting the word “Yele” to 501501. A search on Google’s real-time feed from Twitter for “90999” brings up more than 48,000 results, meaning it’s been mentioned in that many tweets.
The spirit of giving became infectious online. The cell carriers said they wouldn’t be taking their customary cuts of those charges, nor would they charge users for sending the text messages. Even the credit card companies got into the act, waiving their fees for donations to Haiti. Plus, I noticed at one point today that the home pages of the major U.S. cable networks had removed their most lucrative ad slots and replaced them with Haiti relief pitches. (Commercial ads came back later tonight.)
The only downside to all this kindness was the confusion brought by so many free offers. According to AdAge, UPS offered “in-kind services to Haiti,” which somehow became interpreted to mean that people could send free packages to Haiti if they were less than $50 in cost. When American Airlines offered free miles for donations to the Red Cross, people misinterpreted that to mean free flights. “It was misinformation that got picked up, and we got information back out on Twitter saying that it wasn’t the case,” an American spokeswoman told AdAge.
With so many people missing in Haiti and communication systems down, social media has in some cases played the surprising role of life-saver. The CBC reported that a Montreal woman got a Facebook message from someone in Haiti saying that their neighbor was trapped in rubble next door. The Montreal woman contacted the Red Cross and the neighbor was eventually saved. These are the stories that give us hope, even when we’re thousands of miles removed from the disaster zone.
Online Resources
Here’s a list of online resources to follow the news, tweets, find missing people, see satellite imagery, and take action to help out in Haiti.
Special sites and pages
Wikipedia page on 2010 Haiti Earthquake
Miami Herald’s Disaster in Haiti
Ushahidi’s 2010 Earthquake in Haiti
Global Voices Online Haiti Earthquake
Huffington Post’s Haiti Earthquake
CNN’s Voices from Haiti reports on the ground
Twitter feeds
Twitter lists and searches
NY Times haiti-earthquake
LA Times haiti-quake
FoxNews haiti-earthquake
CNNbrk haiti
MSNBC’s BreakingNews haiti-quake
NPR’s haiti-earthquake
Google real-time search results for #haiti
Facebook pages
Support the Victims of the Earthquake in Haiti
Photo Sets
Boston.com’s The Big Picture Haiti 48 hours later
Google Maps with satellite image overlay
Google Earth Library’s links to satellite images
BBC’s Haiti after the earthquake (from GeoEye)
International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Society Flickr set (not Creative Commons; must get permission to use)
UN Development Program Flickr set (under Creative Commons)
Disasters Emergency Committee Flickr set (all rights reserved, mainly from Reuters)
NPR’s Photo Gallery
Hyberabad India’s Haiti Earthquake Image Gallery (optimized for iPod Touch and iPhones, as per Eric Rumsey in comments)
Videos
YouTube’s CitizenTube channel
YouTube videos geo-tagged in Haiti
iReport videos on Haiti earthquake
Take action
Google crisis response page with various ways to donate
PBS Newshour’s Haiti Relief Effort
Huffington Post’s How You Can Help
Adam Sherk rounds up news sites’ help pages
Find people
Miami Herald’s Haiti Connect
Red Cross FamilyLinks for Haiti
NY Times’ The Missing in Haiti photo gallery
CBC Help people find loved ones
Haiti Missing Persons Bulletin Board
Person Finder – Haiti Earthquake (as per Erik from Ushahidi)
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This list will be updated over the coming weeks, so please add in your favorite online resources in the comments below.
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.
Great list Mark. I can add to your take action section with this list of pages on major news sites that provide links to aid organizations. With donation fraud unfortunately increasing news sites are playing an import role in directing people to legitimate groups.
Great resource, Adam, and great point about scams out there. I’ve added your blog post to that section. Cheers!
CraftHope has set up an Etsy shop where 100% of sales goes to Doctors Without Borders. Handcrafted items from all types of artists.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/crafthope
Good list. Thanks. Under “Photo Sets,” the only one that looks good on an iPod Touch is Boston.com. See here for more mobile-friendly Haiti quake pictures.
It would be good if the groups handling “missing persons” (or “find people) would coordinate into one standard format and even one site. Like this one:
http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/
Thanks Eric & Erik for the info. I’ve updated the list of resources with the Hyberabad News pictures and the people finder. Appreciate your help and feedback!
also http://www.wsj.com/photos
Greetings Mark: I’d recommend the daily Haiti coverage – multiple updates each day – in The Christian Science Monitor. Reporter and photographer there now: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Also will have a Haiti Earthquake Diary by a correspondent who has covered Haiti for years, it will launch today.
http://www.twitter.com/csmlibrary
The Crisis Commons/Camp page is a fantastic resource for routing information to the appropriate parties: http://crisiscommons.org/
This group organizes those with skills to perform vital tasks in support of relief efforts.
I think its a mess in haiti but find it disturbing to see all the healthy adults run to florida! I can see evacuating the childeren and injured to a SAFE HAVEN but really when it happens here and it will! we americans will band together untill the last bodies burried I would feel like a coward if I left my fellow countrymen to fin for them self!
yeah… internet is the best medium in spreading news.. hope you will help me to spread this video.. asking for donation…
please contribute to the relief effort in Haiti
STAND WITH HAITI