PubSub to Provide Real-Time Earthquake Notification Via Email, Instant Messaging and RSS

PubSub to Provide Real-Time Earthquake Notification Via Email, Instant Messaging and RSS

Consumers Get Latest USGS Info as Soon as Ground Rumbles; PubSub Offers Information Feed to Other Web Sites/Services

NEW YORK, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- A simple new notification system launched today giving consumers and technology developers easier and more immediate access to time-critical data on global earthquake and tsunami activity.

PubSub Concepts, Inc., a technology company based in New York City, has added real-time earthquake data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) to its Internet-scale "matching engine" found at http://www.pubsub.com/. PubSub is a tool already used by tens of thousands of people to monitor and receive instant updates on new information as it's published via blogs (or web logs), press releases, SEC filings, newsgroups and other sources.

"Seismological activity from the USGS is published in an archaic technical format that's inaccessible both to the average person and to technology developers using modern programming tools. This older format has made it difficult to quickly distribute relevant USGS information through consumer- friendly mediums like the Web, email or wireless phones," said Bob Wyman, chief technology officer of PubSub Concepts, Inc.

"We realized our Internet-scale matching and notification system was ideal for making this critical data more easily and quickly available to the average person. So we've developed a system to translate the USGS technical feed into XML -- the standard language of the Web," he said.

Three Simple Steps

To receive notifications from PubSub on earthquake activity for particular regions and magnitudes, consumers follow three simple steps:

1. Go to http://www.pubsub.com/earthquakes.php

2. Choose one or more regions of the world from the map and select the
magnitude above which notification is requested.

3. Choose where to receive notifications.



Notifications can be sent to any device that accepts email, such as a computer or a personal digital assistant (PDA) - like a wireless-enabled Palm Pilot. Or consumers can download the instant messaging-based PubSub Sidebar for Internet Explorer or Firefox, which allows earthquake notifications to stream into their Web browsers in real-time.

More tech-savvy users can receive notifications via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, which are fed to a "reader" like My Yahoo!, Bloglines or FeedDemon.

Unlike traditional "retrospective" search engines, PubSub's "prospective" search tool is ideally suited for time sensitive information like earthquake data. Search engines like Google and Yahoo! search documents they've collected in the past. PubSub's prospective search matches user requests against new documents as they're published in real-time. Every day, PubSub's matching engine performs billions of matches of new items against user subscriptions.

PubSub Welcomes Developers to Tap Into Feed

In addition to launching consumer-friendly access to the USGS earthquake data through http://www.pubsub.com/, the company encourages technology developers to build the feed into other consumer applications.

"We see our work with the USGS data as a first step in helping this information get more widely and directly disseminated to the general public, as well as to professionals, academics and hobbyists with an interest in seismology," said Wyman. "While making the information immediately available on our own platform, we also hope to serve as a 'gateway' for developers who will build our XML feed into other consumer applications -- from Web sites to mobile phones."

PubSub is also working to support other initiatives in the emergency management field. Wyman has participated for the past year in the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee which has defined CAP (Common Alerting Protocol), a protocol with emergency management and homeland security applications that is currently being tested in both Washington, DC, and California. The new PubSub earthquake notification service fully supports the CAP messaging format.

About the PubSub Service:

PubSub.com provides a free matching service that continuously reads over 8 million blogs, over 50,000 newsgroups, all SEC Edgar Filings, press releases from major wire services, earthquake data from the US Geological Survey, and FAA airport delay information to instantly alert users whenever items of interest appear. This unique, real-time notification service is made possible by PubSub's proprietary "matching engine" which, each day, performs billions of matches of subscriber requests against newly-published items.

About PubSub Concepts, Inc.:

PubSub Concepts, Inc. is a New York-based company founded in 2002. The company develops Internet-scale Publish/Subscribe systems and plans a series of product releases designed to make prospective searching a vital element of the Internet experience. Visit http://www.pubsub.com/ for more information.


Source: PubSub Concepts, Inc.

CONTACT: Salim Ismail of PubSub Concepts, Inc., +1-212-227-4101,
salim@pubsub.com; Anne Green of CooperKatz & Company, +1-212-455-8017,
agreen@cooperkatz.com, for PubSub Concepts, Inc.

Web site: http://www.pubsub.com/


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