Fribble - 7:33 pm on May 12, 2011 (gmt 0)

Prior to this, what other ways were there to communicate such alerts?

In my town, we tattoo important messages on shaved monkeys and release them from strategic locations to ensure proper dissemination. This works much better.

On a more serious note, I think this is a good idea, especially if they can implement it without collecting personal information. If they can set up a system that broadcasts messages/texts/etc to everyone within range of certain cell towers, rather than to specific numbers, then it sounds pretty useful.