I might as well have sent the message to the void as I never received any response. (The email under the contact us page of the Pagasa website has since been changed.)
I thought about this email while participating in last night's ANC forum, Wired for Disasters.
The Pagasa has been saying that the reason they cannot predict weather patterns, particularly rainfall, accurately is because they lack the necessary equipment. But I am beginning to think it is not just that.
There are available technology waiting to be exploited. All you need are people willing and able to use it to the best advantage.
As a regular visitor of the Pagasa website, I am often dismayed at the fact that it is severely outdated. It is a static website that simply does not suit the needs of an agency whose function is supposedly to provide the public with real time information as well as forecasts about the weather.
The Pagasa does not even email their advisories regularly. Following Ondoy and Pepeng, I checked my email for anything coming in through the ABS-CBN Newsdesk egroup from Pagasa. It's a big NADA.
Our staff at News.com was later told by the Pagasa staff that they email their advisories to the NDCC and let NDCC make the announcements. Duh!
Of late, I noticed a slight change, with the posting of this announcement:
SMART subscribers can now receive announcements and advisories thru SMS
More details
More details
Needless to say, I immediately subscribed. Well, it has been a week since. The Pagasa has made a number of announcements about weather disturbances. But no text yet coming in through this service.
Anyway, here is my three year old email.
Date: Wed, Aug 8, 2007 at 8:18 AM
Subject: how about offering rss and weather update email subscriptions from your website?
To: natcruz@pagasa.dost.gov.ph
Hi!
I frequently visit the PAG-ASA website whenever there is news of a storm just to check on the weather status. I hope you don't mind me sending you this unsolicited advice.
What I noticed for sometime is that your website does not offer any email or rss (site feeds) service. This actually surprised me as I believe this is a must for websites nowadays and more so for a website that provides weather information. With so many websites to visit out there, people just don't have the time to go visiting so many websites only to find there's nothing new there. RSS and email updates are a convenient way of informing people (at low cost) that new information has been posted on the site. (You have to post the content online anyway.)
This will tremendously increase your ability to disseminate information about the weather as it will also enable most news websites and blogs whose content management systems are able to parse rss content to easily display updated information from PAG-ASA on their site.
Weather systems are very volatile and change constantly. This is why it is critical for your website to offer services that allow people to subscribe to updated information without needing to visit your site. This makes RSS and mailing lists a must for a website concerning weather.
Speaking from the point of view of one who started a website for an independent news organization which has very limited resources, I can also tell you that this service need not be costly at all. (Most content management systems have this feature and, if yours don't, then it is probably totally outdated.)
A mailing list service can be done easily through Yahoo! Groups. And it need not be very labor intensive. You only have to copy and paste information posted on your website to the message to be posted on Yahoo! groups.
I hope this small suggestion from a concerned citizen who value the service your organization provides will be taken well.
Thank you very much.
