White Pages® launches new community site
Stephen | 8 December 2009
Yesterday, Sensis launched a new website, White Pages® Community, an extension of White Pages® Online. White Pages® Community has been created to share three key types of information with the Australian community:
Key contact information for the public in emergency situations;
Information about our Directory Covers Program, and;
White Pages® News.
Bri Williams, White Pages® Usage Manager, spoke about the initial driver behind the development of the site being the important role of White Pages® in connecting Australians in times of crisis.
“We know that when a crisis happens, like bushfires or flood, it is vital that people can get in contact with the organisations they need. In these times in particular White Pages® wants to be able to help. It’s a role we’ve played for more than 129 years, and we are really proud to be taking it a step further.
“In times of large scale public emergency we will have a highly visible link from White Pages® Online to White Pages® Community. From here, people will be able to find important contact information for emergency service authorities so they can find the right details quickly and easily. The site will not focus on emergency status updates – that’s the role of the emergency management authorities.
“We are also really excited that the Directory Covers program will now have a fitting online home. This is a hugely successful community based program which pays tribute to extraordinary Australians by giving them pride of place on our regional and metro White Pages® directories,” Bri said.
Nationally across 56 regions this year the campaign, which profiled Creative Australians, reached an audience of millions of people. White Pages® Community will grow this audience even further by featuring the stunning cover photography (including covers from the past 3 years) and telling the stories of our cover heroes. It will also provide information to the public on how they can nominate a Covers hero.
White Pages® News is the third section of White Pages® Community. Here people can read about how they can get more out of White Pages® products including the print directory, online and mobile sites. For example, you can read about ht e newly launched White Pages® iPhone app as well as about the White Pages® Community site itself.
If you know of an organisation who may wish to be considered for inclusion on White Pages® Community in the event of a public emergency, please drop us a line via the comments box.
I just caught eye of @steveatsensis tweet about this initiative.
Josh | 9 December 2009I just caught eye of @steveatsensis tweet about this initiative. I followed the above link to the site and had a look at all content. I feel there is a disconnect between the objectives established in this blog, and the content of the microsite.
Firstly, is the expectation that in a time of emergency, people will visit the website to get the number for ‘000′ or the number to text ‘106′. Not sure I understand its purpose. Also what does the front cover of a directory book and news on whitepages have to do with community engagement?
An example of a useful social engagement for a time of crisis is a mashup co-ordinated by @rexster found at http://www.builditback.org. He identified a need to collaborate a huge amount of existing information from all over the web and from different agencies for the Victorian Bushfire Recovery. Its now all in one space and logically organised from how to prevent a fire, how to get building approval and safety & prevention.
To make your engagement more useful, instead of creating another source of information, link existing sources together, and present in an interactive directory.