First-person reporting

Ad hoc, first-person reporting from disasters and emergencies is now an established practice (e.g., the 2004 tsunami, or hurricane Katrina). With mash-ups, it has become common to situate such accounts within their geographical context (e.g., Google Earth kml layers for the London attacks).

Those interested in such phenomena should check out Ushahidi, which tracks Kenya's post-election violence. Local residents may submit incident reports via SMS, which viewers can later filter by location or type.