Social Media During Times Of Crisis

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

The terror of Paris is something that is on all of our minds. With that, Facebook initiated an amazing notification system called "safety check." Here's what it does: if you're in and around a dangerous region (like Paris on Friday night), it asks if you are ok. Facebook knows this because a user tells it they live in Paris, or by your updates and the location. Then, when those of us outside of this region hop on Facebook, at the top the page you can see how many of your friends are in Paris, and whether or not these people have let Facebook know that they are safe. It's brilliant. It's simple. It works. Chalk another good one up to social media. 
With that, if people are using private messaging, how can these platforms help us stay safe when most of the content is private? Is the future of social media private messaging? Yes. Yes it is. Whether you look at the sudden rise in popularity of Snapchat, Facebook's $20+ billion acquisition of WhatsApp or even how they uncoupled their Messenger app and made it stand-alone app. Messaging is the future of the social Web. More than 1.4 billion will use messaging this year, and that number is going to keep increasing. With that, you will soon be able to call an Uber or order on Amazon via your messaging app. So, yes, once again the world of digital is going to change. 
To have social media really help during a crisis, we all have to become more media savvy.
App of the week: Acapella.

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