Flash notifications

KILKENNY -- In my earlier life as a command post duty officer, we occasionally had to notify a wide swath of agencies about an event. The highest level of message traffic was FLASH. Howard Rheingold inherits that idea with "Flash Mobs," and his Smart Mobs web site occasionally points to public gatherings of complete strangers, organised via blogs or mobile phones. When Flash Mobs do Dublin, they do stupid things like swarm into a shop, mill around and quickly disperse.