The world according to Twitter (and Facebook)

It’s been a trending topic for 16 days, while we’ve been bombarded with devastating images and videos everywhere else. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti  a couple of weeks ago was all that anyone could talk about. In the days of yore, any news reached us via traditional forms of media, meaning by the time we learned about a disaster from a world away, the news would be somewhat stale, even up to a day before we knew what was going on (imagine that). The internet and social media has changed that drastically, and now more than ever we’re connected.  

Merely 2 hours after the quake, news hit and exploded on Twitter. Haitian musician Wyclef Jean tweeted a plea to help his people by donating via text to his foundation, Yéle Haiti. Twitter exploded with tweets from all over the world, getting in contact with loved ones in Haiti, organizing relief efforts, sharing pictures and just spreading the news. Even on Facebook, status’ changed to links promoting relief efforts. In a few shorts hours the world opened up a grand conversation. 

But how helpful is that grand conversation when it comes to financing the rebirth of a nation?

Personally, I think it’s a step in the right direction. With the internet comes speed, and thanks to the wildfire spread of Twitter, Facebook and other social media, donations have been pouring in from all around the world. Social media has become a leading tool to reach “the regular people”. It had a great hand in popularizing a fairly new phenomenon; texting donations. Everyone from Rogers to UNICEF to the Red Cross has implemented text messaging donation programs to encourage private donations from people like you and me. But why is something like a text-message program so relevant to the relief effort in Haiti? And how is that connected to social media?

Everyone nowadays has a cell phone: young, old, rich, poor, CEO, free soul. It’s convenient, it’s fun and it keeps us connected. And that’s exactly the angle NGOs needed to reach out to us to react quickly to the Haitian disaster. It’s more convenient than either mailing in cash or cheque, or heaven forbid we should find an office and go there personally to drop off a donation. It’s not exactly fun, but it makes people feel good to know that they donated something. And it keeps us connected to the human spirit. Especially those of us who can’t afford to donate a lot, texting donations in increments of $5 means we have the ability to do something right away without the anxiety of where sacrifices will be made in order to afford the donation. In the first 24 hours after the quake, $1 million was raised by the Red Cross through their text-donation program. How long would that have taken them if social media and the technology of today wasn’t around?

And what about the text-donation connection to social media? Well think about it, how did these text-donation programs get promoted? They were plastered all over everyone’s Facebook status’ or tweets. I have friends in the States, the Philippines, Europe and more changing their status’ to reflect a text-donation program unique to their location. 

Sure the conversation will die soon enough. 16 days after the earthquake, a new topic arose; Apple’s release of the iPad. While this may start the downfall of Haiti relief blitz, there is still about a hundred tweets a minute, meaning the conversation still remains, keeping us connected. 

Because there will always be those 6 degrees inbetween.