Tracking the Egyptian Revolution with the Blogs of War Crisis Monitor

Update
The monitors created to track the Egyptian revolution were so popular that I’ve expanded the coverage significantly. You can see the new configuration here. As part of this transition I’ve standardized on a single template and do not produce the multiple versions of each monitor as described below.

Original Post
A link to the Crisis Monitor can be found at the top of every page. The primary page offers streaming tweets and Al Jazeera English video as well as links to a few other resources (video, images, aggregated news) which I tend to update as events unfold.

Blogs of War has been streaming live tweets since the protests started on the January 25th. Initially only tweets containing the #Jan25 or #Egypt hashtag were monitored but there have been several modifications and new features added to the site as the scale and importance of this event became clear. It isn’t a comprehensive resource but I think it is useful for monitoring the big picture and getting up to speed quickly.

There are two other versions of the Crisis Monitor. A smaller, stripped down, mobile version and a much larger widescreen version which includes three different feeds of streaming tweets and Al-Jazeera English.

The widescreen version of the Crisis Monitor is the type of tool I’d typically build for myself when monitoring a significant event. In fact, that’s why it was initially created. However, I decided to roll out this quick and dirty solution to Blogs of War readers, rather than keep it to myself, because the incredibly large scale and speed of this event is just too much for one person to monitor.

This model has worked pretty well and will be a regular feature (with even more improvements) on Blogs of War during significant events. If you have suggestions for new features or enhancements drop me a line.