Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new service called Safety Check on Facebook.
The purpose of Safety Check is to allow users to simply press a button to confirm that they are safe. This allows friends and family to quickly see in Facebook that they are OK.
The idea was developed specifically for the purpose of helping people send out a message during and after natural and man-made disasters.
Mark explained it as: “Safety Check is our way of helping our community during natural disasters and gives you an easy and simple way to say you’re safe and check on all your friends and family in one place.”
Mark Zuckerberg invited comments from Facebook users and the system is being very well received. I just read a great reply from a volunteer firefighter / EMS:
“I think this is an incredible accomplishment for Facebook and incredibly thoughtful for the community. Question: Will you tie this into the 911 system eventually so a victim could report an emergency? Also, if their “location” is set to “on” perhaps we could find them easier through devices like the one shown?” – Aaron Sereboff,
Mark Z replied: ” Yeah, these are all good ideas for future things to add. This is an important area and there’s a lot more to do here.”
This is a great idea – simple and will give peace of mind to many people during disasters and upheavals.
You can read more details here: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-check/
