Press Info: http://www.vine.net/pressinfo.aspx
http://www.vine.net/

(Currently Beta in Seattle only, but perhaps worth noting...)

Might be interesting. Signed up for the beta.

Same here
Could be useful

As a related note, Google.org has launched a project called Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD. InSTEDD does not have a live software product yet, but organizers have said that it plans to use, among other things, a mash-up of SMS alerts and Google Earth. (They also have begun to maintain a rudimentary flu-tracker: http://www.google.org/flutrends/)

My county currently employs the SMC alert system from http://www.coopernotification.com/ Its a free, public emergency alert system, and many other US cities and counties utilize their service as well - a list of them is here: http://www.roamsecure.net/content.php?contentID=50

These services depend on SMS and email being available.

MS Vine Beta is now active throughout the USA (not just Seattle). The MS support forum for Vine is: http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vine/threads

The Vine support forum members include some official first responder organizations. This is an early Beta and many important features aren't yet implemented.

Another interesting, free alert service that has been mentioned by other forum members in the past is crimereports.com