Twitter for emergencies

The newly unveiled beta product of Microsoft, named Vine^tm is believed to be a twitter during emergencies. Vine is designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communication methods are either broken or not particularly efficient. The whole new idea came from the GM Public Safety initiatives Tammy Savage, four years ago during the Hurricane Katrina.

It gathers information such as warning and reports, from national news sources and also from the
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
It also give status updates from Facebook and other social networking sites, to update everyone in the network, such as family and friends.

The official Beta site is at http://vine.net/ , where an invitation request can be made.
If you make an invitation request they will email you when a new beta is available.
I made a request as soon as I got to know about it, and I will stay in touch with my whole family when I get it.

My view towards Vine is that it can be enabled to rural India, through making it available on mobile. It would be a perfect solution for those poor villagers on the coast line, where frequent floods occur.

A screen shot of Vine.