Is @tweet4blood successful?

Its been a year since I launched @tweet4blood with VSR's help. It's not a great geek work, it's a simple two page application based on twitter api. It didn't take more than an hour to design and code the app. But for me its been one of the happiest moment as I was trying to use technology and social media in use.

Ever since I launched it, I have been thinking about its success. Is it number of page views? or news paper coverages? or is the number blood requests? But then I thought number of blood donations made due to tweet4blood is the right measure. Even though I couldn't track it properly, followers of tweet for blood were very kind to send some responses. I am pasting two such mails verbatim here.

1. First Response
"I am a regular blood donor. I always look for opportunities to donate blood the moment three months pass since my last donation. I have registered with multiple blood banks and websites to alert me whenever they need blood of my type in the vicinity. But such systems have turned passive and I started visiting blood banks to donate blood instead of donating it for a person who is in immediate need, admitted in a hospital.

Few months back I came to know about tweet4blood. It is the twitter way of spreading the message for any blood requirements. Since people tweet with blood type, location and phone number, it becomes easy for me to get in touch with the patient and do my best. Earlier, I remember, I used to receive bulk mails for blood donation requests. But things such as tweet4blood have made things easier. My only concern is, India's poor, who are not exposed to communication channels like emails are twitters may be suffering. We need to address this concern.
- @sharadaprasad
"

2. Second response
"Social networking is a lot of hype and little substance. It is difficult to find a functional application of a social networking platform that does not include a heavy dose of self-aggrandizement. @tweet4blood on Twitter stands-out as an exception. It is functional and practical.

How have I used it?
- As a donor, on three separate occasions I have called a mobile number that was RT'd by @tweet4blood
- On all three occasions I was late, despite calling within a few minutes of receiving the tweet!!
- In other words, the person who answered, said the equivalent of "I appreciate the call. We are covered. We have been flooded with calls from donors."

I rest my case!
- @anand_bala"

I know it's not a popular site but I think even if it has helped at least one on this planet earth. It's successful. What do you think?

5 Responses

  1. ujj says:

    A very apt question to ask, not just for tweet4blood but for a lot of other such initiatives in general. If its saved even one life or made even one person feel good about themselves, I think its done more than a lot of so called successful things floating around on the web right now (you know stuff that help people steal other people’s credit cards or help people steal other people’s code or help people massage their ego better etc).

    Im a big believer in the butterfly effect so if the future of tweet4blood is dependent on this question, I suggest you think again. Even if it hasn’t done much, may be it will, in the future. may be its going to save the next Bill Gates or the next T N Seshan.

  2. G Prashant says:

    If you can add SMS based alerts and interaction too for tweet4blood, that would be great. In case of any emergency or shortage of resources like internet, if tweet4blood can come as a rescue to the needy, nothing like that !

  3. Naveen says:

    Thej,

    You must have heard of gupshup. I don’t know how open their APIs are, but if you can port this application to gupshup, it will serve a much greater local audience.

    Naveen

  4. There was a blood donation drive @ Infy Hyd, and I spread about this word to the volunteers there…they were very happy to know about the existence of a service like this. Launching such a service without expecting anything in return itself is ur step towards success and every individual who got benefited will add to it!

    More from you… :)

  5. Vipul says:

    Definitely successful.. need the word to spread more to take it further and make it more helpful to the masses