[Blog 1] Blog and Social Media.

Okay, I will write quite straightforwardly. I think ‘Global Diaster Watch‘ contains great amount of information about natural disasters, and crisis preparedness information. This blog was also selected by the SciLinks program, a service of the National Science Teachers Association. This blog claims that it contains information about ” climate change, cyclones, drought, earthquakes, flooding, freak waves, hurricanes, landslides, meteor strikes, mystery booms/skyquakes, pandemics, record-breaking disasters, solar flares, space weather, tropical storms, tsunamis, volcanoes, unusual animal behavior, weather extremes, wildfires; disaster archives from 1998-present.”

 

I think one thing that makes this blog outstanding from those of others is it has carried disaster information since 1998 until ‘today’, I mean right now. Actually, there are lots of blogs and blogger in the web writing about natural disaster and crisis, but it is hard to find this kind of blog that dealing with the same topic for more than a decade. This blog has information about hurricane Irene already approached in New York  as well as information about 2004 Sri Lankan Tsunami that killed more than 27,000 people.   I like the great volume of information in this blog. In addition, this blog is updated daily except Saturday. As a journalist student and new media junky, it is really hard to find a blog updated every day like a daily news website. This is another reason that I like this blog.

                                                                                                                              Information about Hurricane Irene in Twitter.

 

However, I am highly doubt that his blog would last another coming 12 years. Because of SNS, and YouTube, I believe the role of this kind of blog is rapidly diminishing. Although, ‘Global Disaster Watch’ updated daily with the latest information, it can’t not follow or advance the information in twitter or even YouTube. In twitter, just searching Irene with hash tag, I can get the latest information (or live) about deadly hurricane Irene. In YouTube, I can see latest video of flooded NYC without any difficulty.

 

I love ‘Global Disaster Watch’ blog and I don’t want to see its disappearance in the future. But I can’t deny that social media replace the role of this kind of blog in very rapid phase right now.