A San Francisco-based website, beextra.org, is working to ease the excruciating search for survivors of the Haiti Earthquake and assist help connect people who want to help with those who need it.
The Extraordinaries is harnessing the power of crowdsourcing, the notion of farming out big projects to many workers. Unlike outsourcing, crowdsourcing projects generally rely on volunteers -- the "crowd" -- who sign up over the Internet.
In this case, the work is sorting through the images pouring out of Haiti every day from news agencies and individuals. People looking for someone missing in the quake zone can submit a photo and search for a match in the database of images and descriptions.
The site's founders say this technology can help revolutionize future disaster relief efforts by giving people everywhere a way to help survivors connect with their families.
