As most of you know, I’m an Apple user so Six Colors, a site dedicated to Apple news, is in my feed. I just noticed this article about Watch Duty, an app that tracks wild fire information and makes it immediately available to those at risk from the fires. The Six Colors article is fairly short but it points to a longer article from The Verge about the app and the people behind it.
Despite being featured on Six Colors, Watch Duty is cross platform and available on both iOS and Android. The entire point of Watch Duty is about protecting people from the fires. It’s not about engagement, tracking users, gathering user information, or making money.
Take a look at The Verge article to see why this app is needed. The fires, often driven by 90 MPH winds, can overwhelm an area in just a couple of minutes. The current government based warning systems often have a 15 minute lag time. The difference can be measured in lives. Watch Duty’s primary objective is to provide useful information in the shortest possible time so that people can make informed decisions on what to do.
Currently all the attention is, of course, on the California wild fires but Watch Duty plans to extend coverage to the entire U.S. and even over seas. It’s a perfect example of what the Web and current technology can and should provide: an apolitical, not-for-profit service dedicated to helping people and saving lives.
There’s plenty of room on the Web for making money too and Irreal’s not against that but sometimes there are more important things. I know this first hand because members of my family lost their house in the California fires. By lost, I mean nothing left but ashes. Happily they’re safe and I don’t know if they used Watch Duty but this is an app that can save peoples’ lives. We should all support it as much as we can.