Helping Haiti With Tech, Texts And Tweets

In this week's All Tech Considered segment, Robert Siegel and I discuss aid for Haiti's earthquake victims — how technology has sped up donations for disaster relief and other ways social media and tech companies are helping people lend a hand.

Here are some of the Web sites, resources and news stories we discussed in the piece:

• Google's Crisis Response site at haiticrisis.appspot.com aggregates the lists of missing people, including the Red Cross Family Links site.

• Donations-by-text reached $13 million as of Monday morning have hit $22 million as of Monday afternoon. You can send $10 at a time by texting "HAITI" to 90999.

• Saturday's multi-city Crisis Camp was an effort to bring tech experts together to find ways to use technology to aid recovery efforts. A Wiki of resources and projects can be found at crisiscommons.org.

• Several good lists are available on reputable organizations you can donate to, including NPR's own list, a great early list I saw on PCWorld and nine ways to help from Mashable.

• An early Twitter rumor about flights to Haiti proved untrue. The FBI has issued a warning about other scams and dangers to avoid in regards to donations.

• Pop culture gets in on the act: Rallies in support of Conan O' Brien will support Haiti relief as will the maker of the video game "Halo 3" if players use a heart-shaped avatar in the game.

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy, whose founder and editor participated in this Washington Post chat last week, says $150 million has been raised from the U.S. so far, dwarfing early fundraising for the 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina relief.

• Wireless companies have sped payments to cut through the usual delay that follows donations.

• Some tweets from the front lines.

• Joshua Brockman's All Tech Considered post about Internet service in Haiti, with links to some of the relief efforts. Includes a link to NPR's Twitter list of first-person accounts from Haiti.

• An All Tech segment we did in late 2008 about technology and philanthropy