Microsoft has created a very intriguing product in Vine, a kind of “unified communications” tool for emergency situations. The map-based, IM-like offering enables people to communicate during or about an emergency or public safety situation using multiple methods including mobile. Here’s what Microsoft says about it:
The Microsoft Vine beta connects you to the people and places you care about most, when it matters. Stay in touch with family and friends, be informed when someone you care about needs help. Get involved to create great neighborhoods, communities or causes. You select the people and places you care about most. Use alerts, reports and your personal dashboard to stay in touch, informed and involved.
I don’t have time to write more this morning but others have. It apparently can pull in feeds from Facebook and Twitter, as well as incorporate SMS and email. It has obvious, potential application in many situations other than emergencies. But it’s not clear to me what Microsoft intends with Vine. Is it limited to emergencies or is that the way to introduce it, with broader ambitions in mind?
In a vague way, it’s not unlike broader, map-based social net IRL Connect. But I haven’t been inside Vine or used IRL Connect much at this point.
More later . . . off to the YPA event.
Screenwerk 
April 28, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I think its really interesting how from enterprises and government agencies to individual users, its clear that visualization (Geo-tagging) is going to be a part of our lives. IRL was built for the visualization of not only people/friends in your social network, but content, conversations and communities. There are similarities between IRL Connect and Vine like you pointed out but IRL Connect sees the adoption of a visual social network evolving into more than just conversations on a map for the enterprise or consumers, but more of a social geo browser which let’s all geotagged content, conversations and social networks flow in and out of the platform, allowing the user to see the virtual world around him/her (seeing friends & content on the map). Launched the public beta last week! check it out
April 29, 2009 at 12:54 pm
[…] its service Vine. Mashable calls it Twitter for emergencies and others have compared it to IRL Connect for the Twitter and Facebook integration with visualization. Microsoft’s entry to this […]
May 5, 2009 at 6:31 am
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