Unlike the earthquake in Haiti, a raft of firsthand videos
showing falling debris and collapsing buildings sprang up on
YouTube within hours of the event; Twitter lit up with multiple
sources pointing to news reports and information; and Google, which
has 35% of the search market in Japan, responded much like a
traditional news organization, taking advantage of its software by
publishing tools and information on its Google Crisis Response page
(which it also did in the wake of Haiti). And while the Red Cross
said it would no longer be able to accept inquiries to locate
family or friends in Japan, Google set up its People Finder Page,
where anyone can type in the name of the person they're looking
for; interestingly, this database is also being populated by
ordinary citizens, highlighting the power of socially-derived
information exchange.
"You saw very quickly the actual footage of everything that was
happening, it was mind-boggling," said Anthony De Rosa, a product
manager and blogger for Reuters. Mr. De Rosa, who has become
something of a news anchor within the universe of Twitter, said the
coverage around the event populated social media more quickly than
the traditional news outlets.
According to an analysis from Trendrr, which tracks terms on
Twitter, the word "earthquake" reached 19,360 tweets per hour when
the earthquake first struck, and peaked at 35,430 Twitter posts an
hour as people started waking up in the U.S. By late March 11, a
total of 246,075 Twitter posts using the term "earthquake" had been
posted to the microblogging service.
"There are a lot of people putting out reports that are rumor or
secondhand source," Mr. De Rosa said. "But the great thing about
Twitter is that someone will see it and they can verify that or
correct it if it's not true."
Social cause
The social response was perhaps most animatedly seen in the U.S.
at the South by Southwest festival, which kicked off on the day of
the tragedy. Forty-five minutes after news of the earthquake hit
American media outlets, the website SXSW4Japan.org appeared online.
"I woke up and I saw the news and I knew we needed to do something
about this," said Rob Wu, a co-founder of CauseVox, a web startup
that helps nonprofits create online fundraising campaigns.
Hugh Forrest, director of SXSW Interactive, said it's no
surprise attendees are so quickly responding to the tragedy. "In
the last months we've had several panels change their focus to talk
about how social media has affected world events," he said.
On the ground
The tsunami struck just off the northeastern coast of Japan, and
though the country's biggest cities of Tokyo and Osaka were not too
severely affected, major industries were hit hard. According to BBC
reports, major manufacturers have halted production, including
Sony, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Fuji Heavy Industries -- which makes
Subaru, and Sapporo -- among others. Among some American concerns
in Japan, P&G temporarily suspended production at one plant
Friday, but resumed production soon thereafter, according to a
spokesperson.