Sandy Proved Worth of Social Media

Borough residents are encouraged to sign up for Doylestown's email messaging system and follow boro officials on Twitter.

Huddled in the dark, with no power, no heat, and sometimes no water, Doylestown-area residents clung to their mobile devices as lifelines to information during Superstorm Sandy. Doylestown Borough officials used several social media outlets to get information out to residents. They are encouraging residents to sign up for the distribution lists now, before the next emergency. The borough's email notification system, called Dmail, and its Twitter account gained hundreds of new followers during Hurricane Sandy, officials said Monday night. "Many people joined in the midst of the storm," borough manager John Davis said during Monday night's council meeting. "We encourage everyone to go to our website, sign up for D-mail, find our Twitter page…

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United Way Adds App to Help County Residents

United Way of Bucks County unveiled a human services phone app at an event that garnered a spot on one of the Internet's most popular social media websites.

  The United Way of Bucks County launched a new smartphone app Tuesday that will help put local residents in contact with nonprofits and resource organizations. “We’re working to help people go from helplessness to hopefulness. And the phone app should help with that,” said Jamie Haddon, executive director of the county's United Way. The app is a digital version of its red and white paper human services directory, which has been published for years. The app will help users get in touch with the groups via phone. Users can even use the app to find out how to help the groups listed, Haddon told Patch. “One more cool feature is people can find an agency’s distance from them by using the app and the phone’s GPS,” Haddon added. The sleek new …

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About Town

Enter the Doylestown Twitterverse

Check out a bid for county commissioner, the ambulance chief/actor and a mouthwatering martini recipe in this update on Dtown life on Twitter.

Ah, Twitter. Contributor to attention-deficit-disorder, outlet for the modern press release and deliverer of the occasional newsworthy tidbit. Plus, there's some really funny stuff on it. If you don't know Twitter, where have you been, hanging out with my husband in the 1970s fan club? Just kidding. Here's the Twitter 101 for those of you who didn't find your way to DoylestownPatch via, well, Twitter. Twitter is pretty easy. Sign up at twitter.com (it's free), choose a user name, and start searching for people to "follow." Look for those who share your interests (search for #wine, or #books) or your hometown (#Doylestown, #BucksCounty). Once you've found some interesting folks, click "follow" on the button next to their name, and next time…

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