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Microsoft's Windows Azure and Disaster Response

Tech Soup

Most people who are familiar with Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform know of it as a cloud platform for building, hosting, and scaling web applications. The portal would allow emergency response teams, municipal actors, and other community agencies to use mapping, social media, translation, and other tools for online communications.

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Philanthropy and Social Media: New Whitepaper from The Institute for Philanthropy

Amy Sample Ward

Ushahidi, an open source project originally deployed in Kenya to report post-election violence has since been downloaded and deployed for many other events and disasters, including Haiti, Chile, and Japan. Philanthropy has been able to move into the real time web, too. Another great example is Epic Change.

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More on Using Crowdsourced Data to Find Big Picture Patterns (Take 3)

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

The helicopter survey is a more expensive, but more effective tool for getting the big picture. As a thought experiment, imagine this approach being used in the Japan tsunami. I hope that this underscores the seriousness of this issue and makes it more tangible. Delay costs lives.

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TechSoup Digital Storytelling Event: Final Twitter Chat Highlights

Tech Soup

Yes, the same Facebook application that hosts your Birthday Wish and largely powered the Save Japan Dolphins campaign featured in the documentary The Cove. There's still time to enter your submission before the second annual Digital Storytelling Challenge ends this coming Monday, January 31!

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Webinar Recap: App It Up!

Tech Soup

As defined by the project, "An 'app' (short for 'application') is a small piece of software with limited functionality. Apps can be used online (a web app), on mobile devices (a mobile app), or as an add-on to other tools (widgets, plug-ins, templates, and so on)." So What Is an App, Anyway? for Android.

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Cool App Roundup: Disaster and Emergency Edition

Tech Soup

The notification app J-ResQ was developed in response to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The app was developed on the Windows Azure platform, a cloud-based platform for building and hosting web applications. Using cell phones as tools for emergency preparedness. Notifying Family and Friends. How About You?

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Twitter in an Emergency - more from Elsua

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

where he is clearly demonstrating how micro-blogging applications like Twitter could be used, specially, in emergencies, and not just to carry on with that declarative living we all seem to enjoy quite a bit. application that??? application that???s tools that apply in emergencies, we would love to link to it!

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