Can Social Media Analytics Help Disaster Relief?

This article from FCW (http://bit.ly/10xudE2) shows how Social Media Analytics are not just for private or commercial use. Analysing people's social media activity can actually help when it comes to disaster relief and/or recovery. An organisation has been able to use this to monitor hospital activity, and even to point first-aiders towards survivors of disasters!

The following article from The Guardian (http://bit.ly/SQQsF5) talks about how social media analystic helped to save lives on several occasions during and after different disasters in the past few years, through pictures, videos, and other social media activities.

The data generated from all of these combined activities can be used for future forecasts and help prevent disasters in the future.

So who said social media is useless and a waste of time?