DARPA's Dating Site

Social networking is a buzzword that even the military has latched onto. According to a new request for information, DARPA's scientists are looking for innovative ways to get people to collaborate, drawing on everything from Craigslist to dating web sites.

The goal however, is not to find a date, but to allow civil-military collaboration during humanitarian and disaster operations:

Recent web-based examples have demonstrated that people can dynamically network to achieve common goals such as conducting commerce via online auctions (e.g., eBay ?) and markets (e.g., Craigslist ?), developing new social networks (online dating services, social networking sites), and planning and carrying out volunteer, ad hoc activities (e.g., GeoMissions via Geocaching ?). An analogous set of tools and capabilities could be developed to support [Assistance and Civil Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction/Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief] SSTR/HADR operations, allowing both formal organizations and individuals to locally match their resources and needs.

The problem with disaster relief and humanitarian operations is that hundreds of different organizations, from relief workers to private contractors, are operating without any way to communicate. According to DARPA, the concept would be to build some sort of networking tool "within which large numbers of people (1,000s of people from 100s of organizations, with different experiences, cultures, expertise, and concepts/constructs/languages) can come together in top-directed organization" to collaborate in disaster relief operations.

Sounds like something that would have been great to have in New Orleans.