Ping4’s technology is a bit different from the Commercial Mobile Alerts System (CMAS) alerts that began popping up on our smartphones over the last six months. CMAS allows local and national authorities to broadcast alerts theoretically to any subscriber on any carrier, though in practice only a handful of phones in a limited number of cities (though as the GigaOM East office discovered last week Verizon’s New York network and the iPhone are on those lists).

Ping4’s technology is an opt-in technology, requiring the user to download its Ping4alerts! app, available for Android and iOS. While that means only smartphone users with the app can receive alerts, it also gives public safety agencies many more tools in tailoring alerts. The app receives both text and audio alerts as well as multimedia data. For instance, a dangerous weather alert can come embedded with a map of the most high-risk storm zones.

While CMAS can only alert phones connected to the cellular network, Ping4’s system can also send its alerts through Wi-Fi, allowing it to hook tablets into an emergency gird. Its hyper-local geo-fencing technology allows an agency to get very location-specific, targeting, for instance, only devices within a single building. Finally Ping4 allows two-way communications. If an agency sends out an Amber Alert on a missing child, anyone with information could immediately respond to the alert via anonymous text.

Ping4 started working with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency in October, just in time to send out severe weather warnings for Superstorm Sandy. The University of New Hampshire also uses the system for campus security alerts and student and faculty mass communications.

The $4 million in funding comes from private investors, not venture capital firms, and Ping4 wouldn’t reveal the identities of its new benefactors. In total, the company said it has raised $7 million from private placements.  It will use those funds to market its service to more emergency agencies and consumers as well as build up its fledgling location-based commerce business. The same hyper-local alerts technology can be used to deliver coupons and ads to consumers, giving Ping4 another tier to its business plan.

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But when I hear from the folks at Springpad about changes to the service, I always read with interest. Even as my usage has waned, I really have always been very impressed with the service, and the possibilities of what it could become. The latest batch of changes promise to make Springpad even more useful.

I’ve already discussed the transition that Springpad seems to be making, moving away from a structured note-taking app toward more everyday usage, like capturing and then using data around restaurants, movies, books, food and recipes, for example. The company’s own description of Springpad as a “lifestyle application” encapsulates this change and is quite apt. So while I don’t really use it to store the notes and other such data as I have in the past, it’s still a wonderful way to grab information about my stuff and then get presented with more contextual information about it.

I was really excited to read about the new Extension for Chrome, released today. The nice thing about the extension as opposed to the bookmarklet is that not only does it allow me to get info into the app, it also gives me access to the data that already resides there, without having to visit the site. I can quickly view and sort the info in my account. Adding items is easy and it does a wonderful job of recognizing the type of data that I am adding, and can also enhance it with useful information, such as pricing information or addresses for physical locations.

When I clip items using the extension, I can edit the information and add tags. I can’t seem to change the public / private settings at the time of clipping though, which would be nice. I do tend to capture a mix of items and the defaults don’t always match my intentions.

Any application that is supposed to help you capture and organize your information is really only as useful as the tools that are made available to help you get that information into the app. No matter what you can do with the data when it’s there, if it isn’t easy to grab and store it, chances are you just aren’t going to take the time.

I am not an iPhone or Android user so I don’t have access to the mobile applications available for those platforms, but they’ve received a couple of useful updates designed to make that connection even more useful, specifically the ability to send mobile alerts from within Springpad and to quickly push notifications about specific items directly to your phone for easy access. Again, the ubiquity of the data and the ease with which it becomes useful is key. I think mobile users with access to the Springpad application will find the service even more appealing than I do.

Springpad is free, web-based and works in all major browsers. Applications are also available for iPhone, iPad and Android.

I am rediscovering my Springpad — what can it do for you?

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