"If just five percent of the people in an area did something, it would change the dynamics of emergency response," said Shneiderman.
Capitalizing on the growing phenomenon of social networking and using it as an infrastructure for emergency response is a novel approach, said John Carlo Bertot, professor in the College of Information at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla.
But, he said, "It's one piece of a much larger discussion in terms of emergency response and dissemination of information. Any one medium isn't going to hit all of the people in a community."
And paying for it could be a challenge. Shneiderman and Preece suggest that a community response grid could be paid for with user fees collected by Internet service providers. Bertrot thinks users might balk, seeing it another kind of tax.
"Who's to say it's wrong to have this tax? If it's 50 cents a month, is that worth it?" said Bertrot.
According to Shneiderman, the current 911 phone system is run locally and funded by user fees collected by local phone companies.
"We suggest a small user fee be collected or paid for by the Internet Service Providers," he said.
