We mentioned the KatrinaHome.com website the other day -- it's a site designed to match people with available space with evacuees from the hurricane zone. This is exactly the kind of offering for which the web is ideally-suited: a bottom-up provision of assistance to strangers, mediated by decentralized networks. It's such a good idea that MoveOn.org started Hurricanehousing.com, providing similar connections, the very next day!
But KatrinaHome founder Rod Edwards (who also runs WorldChanging ally SustainabilityZone.com) has taken the site to a new level, and has done something very, very smart: KatrinaHome.com now has a WAP interface for access via cellular phones. (WAP, or Wireless Access Protocol, allows for simplified web pages to be sent over standard cellular networks.)
wap.katrinahome.com/index.wml allows people with mobile phone connections but no computer -- almost certainly a not-insubstantial number of the evacuees -- the ability to access the housing database. Although some advanced mobile phones can run full-blown web browsers, a far larger number are limited to WAP-based sites. By making Katrinahome.com available over WAP, Rod has dramatically expanded the number of people who could take advantage of the match-making service.
This is something worth talking about more widely, and if you're running a weblog or mailing list -- or even just conversing with your circle of friends about the hurricane aftermath -- consider giving it a link.
(Edit: And, as David says in the comments, thank you, Rod. This is truly wonderful work on your part.)
