One of the questions we get here at Collecta from those who are new to real-time search is “What would I use it for?” A fair question, for those used to static web search, the importance of real-time information may not always be clear – until you need it. Which is why we have decided to present some case studies from real Collecta users. We could easily tell you all the ways you could use Collecta – to track your favorite sports team during the game, follow breaking news or get the latest scoop on your favorite celebrities, stay ahead of the curve in business by tracking the market buzz – but we feel like real life examples speak most clearly to the importance of real time, and how the real-time web combined with social media provides information that you can’t always get from traditional media sources.
On Dec 2nd, 2009 the city of Charleston SC had some severe weather causing road closures, flooding and damages. If you’ve ever visited Charleston, you know that the main city is on a peninsula, very close to sea level, so flooding potentially shuts down large parts of the city. Quite the bummer if you have somewhere to go. Suddenly knowing which streets are flooded and which streets are passable – right now – takes on a whole new importance.
Photo found via Collecta from The Post and Courier – Tony Bartelme/Staff
The Digitel Charleston started asking people to use a specific hash tag to post their information to Twitter, and to follow it on Collecta.com and used this to feed important real time information about a sever storm to its citizens helping them keep track of the storm, and to help users re-route around the most flooded areas when travel was a must.
By aggregating information from Twitter, local weather blogs, and traditional media sources from the rest of the web all in one place, Collecta provided a one-stop place to get the information Charleston residents needed about the storm, in real time. As a further example, below Christopher Zorn, a Collecta developer who lives in Charleston, used this real time feed from Collecta to guide his family through the storm.
Have you used Collecta to make your life easier, help you have more fun, or follow a breaking event that matters to you? Let us know by email or @collectadotcom on Twitter.
December 14, 2009 at 10:15 pm
[...] Collecta blog has posted a neat case study about the Charleston flooding that happened a couple weeks ago, and how people used Collecta to tie [...]
December 15, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Being that it is the consumer holiday of the year, I’ve been researching products that I’m interested in… Google, etc has been pretty disappointing in the _recent_ review space so I turned to Collecta.com. Jackpot! Since I’ve read many reviews I’d love to be able to reply via collecta to the posts I find…. even if it means that I have to enter/create accounts on flicker/etc. in order to do so. Here is one post that I found in my search that I’d like to respond to:
“#cameras: struggling to choose btwn a #canon G11 and #panasonic GF1 … v different i know, but anyone want to weigh in?”
Ryan