In a recent post on the Alerts and Notifications blog, the authors discussed their “Top 10 Emergency Notification Predictions for 2011″. We here at AWARE hope their predictions come true. Click the link above to read the entire post, and if you have not already bookmarked the Alerts and Notifications blog, do that, too!

Their top ten predictions include the following:

1. FEMA IPAWS continues to build strong momentum.
2. CAP is king.
3. New partnerships will be forged between emergency managers and broadcasters.
4. Warning system integration moves forward.
5. A little thing called “social media” continues to take hold within emergency management.
6. The need for independent alert and warning guidance expands.
7. Healthcare and educational institutions begin seeking to plug into local emergency alert and warning practices.
8. Alert and warning discipline will receive greater academic focus; new research will emerge.
9. A focus on improving citizen notification data quality will emerge.
10. Citizens demand more and participate deeper in alerts and warnings.

Alerts and Notifications’s “Top 10″ is a comprehensive, thought-provoking list. In fact, it made the AWARE team wonder if we could make any additional predictions for the year. Let us know what you think of Alerts and Notifications’s “Top 10″ as well as
AWARE’s additional seven emergency notification predictions for 2011:

#11: NG911 will dawn a new age at the local 911 center.  Advances in Next Generation 911 (NG911) will begin to enable the public to obtain emergency assistance by means of advanced communications technologies beyond traditional voice-centric devices.  Technologies such as the ability to transmit and receive photos, text messages and video will begin to play a part in emergency response.  A transition to IP-based communications capabilities for emergency communications and NG911 will begin.

#12: The latest technology in car radios will improve alerting.  The proliferation of HD Radio in new vehicles, as well as the established RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data System) radios, will increasingly enable the text display of emergency messages in the mobile environment.  Devices leveraging this technology will continue to evolve, providing increased alerting capabilities to these already-deployed alerting devices.

#13: New FCC Rules will create a better public alerting system.  The forthcoming revised FCC rules governing the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will bring EAS capabilities up to current state of the art technical standards, as well as address lingering alerting issues, which will then allow broadcasters and cable operators to serve the public to the greatest extent possible.  Through input gathered from the EAS vendor and broadcaster stakeholder communities, the new FCC rules will result in the best ideas of the EAS community at large.

#14: Emergency managers and other alert originators will gain a better understanding and become more involved in the new generation of alerting.  Through outreach efforts by federal officials such as the FEMA Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Office and standards organizations such as the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) at emergency management conferences, state and local first responders will be exposed to the capabilities and ease of use of new alerting systems.  The “one button can send your message over multiple paths to numerous device types” structure of new systems will bring emergency managers onboard quickly once they see these systems in action during pilots and interoperability demonstrations.  They will begin to see interoperability as more important than just for use in their two-way radios.

#15: CAP will see its next generation.  The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) will make strides in developing the next generation of the Common Alerting Protocol, CAPv2.0.  With the diverse make-up of OASIS committees, and input from practitioners of the CAP standard worldwide, a new version of the CAP standard will emerge as the best yet.

#16: Streaming media will grow as a dissemination path.  With more media being streamed over the Internet (Netflix, Hulu, etc.); more set-top devices designed with streaming capabilities as their primary purpose (Apple TV, Roku, etc.); increasing use of TV “timeshifting” (using a DVR); and the rollout of increased mobile broadband services, providing alerts on an IP basis will be increasingly necessary as greater numbers of the public access media through these services.

#17: This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was all about “smart TVs”, which are TVs with built-in Internet connections, browsers and support for small widgets/apps. The industry’s sense is that basically all TVs above the low-end price range will be manufactured as smart TVs going forward, and that people will start to use them increasingly as pull devices for weather, news, sports and stocks, as well as Facebook, etc. (do not get us started on “smart” ovens and refrigerators…).