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Well a few things: * The tragedy would have been the same. By no means (and i don't think you are implying that I am either) saying tech today would have pre

Well a few things: * The tragedy would have been the same. By no means (and i don't think you are implying that I am either) saying tech today would have prevented it. * The zero delay of information flow would have made things a lot less hectic for everyone. At the time the towers fell there was a massive panic of finding where everyone was and if they were okay. I could imagine a popular hashtag emerging such as: #imokay . It wasn't possible to broadcast to all of your friends in a matter of seconds if you were okay in 2001. *I think we've scratched the surface of how locational context can improve most things. If we can organize and provide context to information in the real world, the same way we have to the digital world, that will be big.

davidw 16y ago
You could imagine twitter not crashing and burning itself after an event like that?
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  Theoretically you would hope it stays up, but past data shows that is iffy. FB might be sluggish, but it would be fine.
user24 16y ago
The web was still pretty grown up in 2001 - admittedly no facebook or twitter; the idea of immediate spread of information through non-traditional routes was not widespread. I checked cnn and bbc news for information (both of which went down several times that day I might add) But I really doubt twitter would stay up if a 9/11-scale event happened today. Even facebook I'm not sure about. If the CNN site couldn't handle the traffic I can only imagine what that spike looked like. "It wasn't possible to broadcast to all of your friends in a matter of seconds if you were okay in 2001." well, there was - cell phones and SMS. Those networks went down too (source: http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0153.htm http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0153.htm )
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  SMS was certainly there, but nowhere near the usage that it has today.
  - user24 16y ago
    Hmm, apparently the UK were 4 years ahead of the US in terms of SMS adoption (source: http://www.intomobile.com/2007/07/23/americans-are-4-years-behind-the-uk-in-terms-of-sms-adoption/ http://www.intomobile.com/2007/07/23/americans-are-4-years-b...) so maybe you're right. Certainly felt to me like SMS was well established in the UK in the 2000s.
- sanderjd 16y ago
  SMS and phone calls don't broadcast, that is the key difference.
dagw 16y ago
It wasn't possible to broadcast to all of your friends in a matter of seconds if you were okay in 2001. I think you're vastly overestimating the true popularity of twitter. If I where to tweet #imokay very few would see it, and those who did would have no idea how to contact my family to let them know that I was in fact OK. If I told many of my friends to "tweet the hashtag #imokay" they'd just look at me and only be vaguely aware of what I was talking about. Even in 2010 the best and quickest way for most people to let people know that they are OK is to make a phone call.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  who says im talking about twitter only? I actually think it's not as vastly popular as people estimate too. In the instance of 9/11 the best way to let a large number of people know you are okay would certainly be Facebook/Twitter/etc. Phone calls would take way too long. You should obviously save that for close friends.
sesqu 16y ago
Uhh... When I came home and saw the second plane hit on TV, it took about 10 seconds before I and most of my friends were on IRC, on a moderated channel that got realtime news relays. Actually, there were several such channels, since they hit capacity pretty fast. That's how I got all the valuable information, like how there were reports that a plane was headed for the Eiffel Tower, that I could share with my offline family. If I had wanted to let someone know I was okay, I probably would have tried SMS, found it didn't work, and then made a note of letting some blabbermouth know once I found a landline or netcafé. 'course, I didn't live in the US, so this is pretty hypothetical. The point is, I got news (and could discuss with friends) faster back then than I probably would today.
dstorrs 16y ago
I was six blocks north of the Towers when they fell. The reason it was hard to get the word out had nothing to do with the presence or absence of Twitter / FB / etc. The reason it was hard was because all the cell towers were down (literally down: many of them were on top of the Towers) and the landlines were clogged with several million people making or receiving calls. Were this to happen in 2010, you'd see the exact same results. It might be a bit better, because more people would be using VOIP and the land-based Internet didn't go down, but that wouldn't have solved the issue.

davidw 16y ago

You could imagine twitter not crashing and burning itself after an event like that?

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Theoretically you would hope it stays up, but past data shows that is iffy. FB might be sluggish, but it would be fine.

user24 16y ago

The web was still pretty grown up in 2001 - admittedly no facebook or twitter; the idea of immediate spread of information through non-traditional routes was not widespread. I checked cnn and bbc news for information (both of which went down several times that day I might add) But I really doubt twitter would stay up if a 9/11-scale event happened today. Even facebook I'm not sure about. If the CNN site couldn't handle the traffic I can only imagine what that spike looked like. "It wasn't possible to broadcast to all of your friends in a matter of seconds if you were okay in 2001." well, there was - cell phones and SMS. Those networks went down too (source: http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0153.htm http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0153.htm )

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
SMS was certainly there, but nowhere near the usage that it has today.
- user24 16y ago
  Hmm, apparently the UK were 4 years ahead of the US in terms of SMS adoption (source: http://www.intomobile.com/2007/07/23/americans-are-4-years-behind-the-uk-in-terms-of-sms-adoption/ http://www.intomobile.com/2007/07/23/americans-are-4-years-b...) so maybe you're right. Certainly felt to me like SMS was well established in the UK in the 2000s.
sanderjd 16y ago
SMS and phone calls don't broadcast, that is the key difference.

dagw 16y ago

It wasn't possible to broadcast to all of your friends in a matter of seconds if you were okay in 2001. I think you're vastly overestimating the true popularity of twitter. If I where to tweet #imokay very few would see it, and those who did would have no idea how to contact my family to let them know that I was in fact OK. If I told many of my friends to "tweet the hashtag #imokay" they'd just look at me and only be vaguely aware of what I was talking about. Even in 2010 the best and quickest way for most people to let people know that they are OK is to make a phone call.

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
who says im talking about twitter only? I actually think it's not as vastly popular as people estimate too. In the instance of 9/11 the best way to let a large number of people know you are okay would certainly be Facebook/Twitter/etc. Phone calls would take way too long. You should obviously save that for close friends.

sesqu 16y ago

Uhh... When I came home and saw the second plane hit on TV, it took about 10 seconds before I and most of my friends were on IRC, on a moderated channel that got realtime news relays. Actually, there were several such channels, since they hit capacity pretty fast. That's how I got all the valuable information, like how there were reports that a plane was headed for the Eiffel Tower, that I could share with my offline family. If I had wanted to let someone know I was okay, I probably would have tried SMS, found it didn't work, and then made a note of letting some blabbermouth know once I found a landline or netcafé. 'course, I didn't live in the US, so this is pretty hypothetical. The point is, I got news (and could discuss with friends) faster back then than I probably would today.

dstorrs 16y ago

I was six blocks north of the Towers when they fell. The reason it was hard to get the word out had nothing to do with the presence or absence of Twitter / FB / etc. The reason it was hard was because all the cell towers were down (literally down: many of them were on top of the Towers) and the landlines were clogged with several million people making or receiving calls. Were this to happen in 2010, you'd see the exact same results. It might be a bit better, because more people would be using VOIP and the land-based Internet didn't go down, but that wouldn't have solved the issue.