News

Twitter Launches Emergency Alert System

09/26/2013

Sept. 26--Twitter has just launched Twitter Alerts, which the company is positioning like an emergency broadcast system of the social media age.

With Twitter Alerts, Twitter users can choose to receive special SMS text messages directly to their iPhones (you need iOS 5.10 or higher) or Android phones (running on Android 4.1.6 or higher) whenever there's a natural disaster, severe weather, nuclear accident, terrorist attack, major transportation disruption or other major emergency in their area. Those messages will also appear as tweets marked with an orange bell icon on Twitter timelines.

The tweets will come from a Twitter-approved list of government and public-safety organizations, like the local police department or the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and nongovernmental organizations like the American Red Cross.

"When news breaks about a weather or safety emergency, government agencies and emergency responders jump into action on the ground and on Twitter, delivering critical and timely information and engaging with constituents," Bridget Coyne, Twitter's partner manager for government and politics, wrote on a company blog.

"We saw this following Superstorm Sandy, the tsunami in Japan, and the manhunt in Boston," she wrote.

The latest service comes as the San Francisco company, which has more than 200 million users around the world, is preparing for an initial public offering.

Twitter has long been used to send alerts and news about emergency situations and has become a resource for information both from government organizations and citizens on the ground.

Last year, Twitter in Japan launched Lifeline, which helped users there find emergency Twitter accounts during a crisis, and the company said it has been working on expanding that feature for the rest of the world.

More than 100 organizations are now signed on to use Twitter Alerts. The organizations have to be preapproved by a team of workers at Twitter and will be required to increase the security of their accounts.

So far, the list includes national organizations like the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the U.S. Geological Survey.

In California, only the Red Cross' San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley chapters are signed up, along with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Twitter has posted this online enrollment form.

Ellison plays hooky: If winning is a deodorant, as the oft-used sports adage says, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was smelling a little better at Oracle OpenWorld on Wednesday after Oracle Team USA's America's Cup victory blunted the disappointment of the billionaire skipping out on scheduled appearances the day before.

"I think the whole Oracle community is going to forgive him," Oracle OpenWorld attendee Rolf Wienk of Holland said moments after the Ellison-funded yacht completed its historic comeback. "He won, after all."

The conference ground to a halt after lunch Wednesday as thousands of attendees gathered in the sun on a blocked-off Howard Street to watch the race on big screens. There was hardly anyone openly rooting for Team New Zealand, but a big cheer went up when Oracle Team USA crossed the finish line first.

Some in the crowd were still upset that Ellison ditched his scheduled keynote speech on Tuesday to watch Team USA tie the series up. Several thousand people had packed the Moscone Convention Center North Hall anticipating news about the company's cloud computing plans, and more than half left before Thomas Kurian, Oracle's executive vice president for product development, finished speaking in Ellison's stead.

Ellison also blew off an exclusive "inner circle" meeting with about 2,000 top customers scheduled right after the keynote.

The problem was many of the 60,000 Oracle customers, business partners and investors attending the five-day conference paid big bucks and traveled thousands of miles to hear directly from the Oracle leader himself.

"It was very, very disappointing," said Bright Yeboah, a computer programmer from Norway. Yeboah watched the telecast Wednesday, but still wasn't ready to forgive Ellison because yacht racing "doesn't mean much to me."

Wienk, a senior account manager, said Ellison playing hooky from the conference was still the topic of conversation Wednesday morning. Many were wondering if Ellison would try to somehow compensate the crowd.

"If you have all of these people come to your event, you shouldn't do that," Wienk said. "I understand from a human aspect that he wants to be with his team, but he should not do that. I totally disagree with what he did."

But Dave Kerr, an enterprise architect with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said he was OK with Ellison choosing his passion over the business conference.

"At least he had someone standing in to do it," Kerr said. "As long as the information is the same, does it have to be Larry? Maybe we'll see him tomorrow. Why wouldn't he want to show up and blow his horn?"

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle reporter. Read The Tech Chronicles blog online at https://blog.sfgate.com/techchron. E-mail: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com