Twitter starts to answer Haiti’s desparate calls
Forget the political example of how Twitter opened up communications and spread news during the recent and ongoing oppression in Iran post-election, it is now found its place in the message spreading and financial help of natural disaster relief and aid efforts.
On Tuesday 12 January, a massive earth quake struck Haiti with initial reports fearing heavy damage and high loss of live and guess what Twitter is coming to the call.
Popular celebrity rapper and Haitin-born Wyclef Jean (1,310,719 followers) sent out the request to donate (www.yele.org). Many others were sharing their grief and prayers through the micro-blogging site. According to his Tweets, Wyclef is on his way to Haiti to help in the efforts.
Post by Wylcef (retweeted by many including @mycamp)
wyclef “Haiti needs your help if you r in the US text Yele to 501 501 and 5 dollars will go toward earthquake relief in Ha (cont) http://tl.gd/3hsti”
Many are also promoting donations through sending an SMS
“leed622 RT @RedCross: You can text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti.”
Good to see Twitter coming into good use, will be interesting to look at the figures of how much will be raised?
