There seems to be an ongoing trend with emergency alerting systems flourishing.

Hoping on this trend, yesterday Twitter launched Twitter alerts, a new feature that allows Twitter users to receive critical tweets in times of emergency on their phones. It's a fantastic move for Twitter since, as Fast Company mentions, they are "making an unofficial emergency channel an official one".

What I find most interesting is that the alerts will be delivered... wait for it... via SMS!!!!

Yes, if you have an iPhone or Android phone, you'll be able to get a push notification. However, the alert will ALSO come as an SMS (since you might be a Twitter user, but you might not have a smartphone... or internet might not be available in your area?).

I guess when it comes to delivering critical and timely information, SMS will win the battle over apps/ push notifications, at least for the next few years.