As a further proof that mobiles are absolutely taken for granted as a means of communication, I received an automated text message from Persil Services, who do dry cleaning at my local Sainsbury’s, to tell me my dress was ready to be picked up.

I expected to have to dig up that receipt the lady gave me last week, which I crammed in the back pocket of my jeans, never to be found again, but they’ve saved me hassle by reminding me of my ticket number.

They still can’t spell my name right (*sigh*) but otherwise, Persil gets thumbs up on this!

[Update 8:32pm: Google Maps also offers its support by showing the state of the fires, as well as the emergency services and evacuated areas. Via Digg.]

Reading about the Californian fires from across the ocean, reading Tweets and looking at Flickr pics, I feel sick and wish there was a way to stop it all. But at the same time, I’m fascinated to see what use people make of technology that’s available.

Chris Messina has been throwing around the idea of hashtags to help identify relevant content on Twitter and other social networks for some time now, and while Twitter hasn’t implimented the hash-based tags per se, they’ve enabled users to track all discussion on any given keyword, whether it’s “NYC”, “Steve Jobs” or “earthquakes”.

In time of crisis, people organise quickly, and this one seems to have picked up. Really, what a useful tool to catch the latest news when you’ve been evacuated from home and want to keep a check on your loved ones as well as the evolution of the situation?

Even Wired’s Compiler blog covers the situation:

Twitter users can enter “track sandiegofire” in SMS or IM and receive notifications whenever a tweet goes out with that tag in it.

Here’s an excellent real-world example of the usefulness of Twitter’s limited scope and feature set — Reporting breaking news quickly. They’re certainly filing updates more frequently than most mainstream media outlets.

Social networks and mobiles form such an ideal way to quickly organise vast numbers of people, a Twitteresque emergency service should exist everywhere, as some universities have started making compulsory. Some will shout and scream about privacy and Big Brother, but personally, if it means I get advance warning and can pick up my husband and my cats before the fire’s on my doorstep, the SMS will be a very welcome one.