EFAC is essentially an affiliate advertising network that gives a majority (70%) of its profits to charity. With the popularity of social sharing on the Web and the rise of recommendation services, EFAC seems to be a perfect fit for the Web-savvy shopper looking to help raise money for a good cause.

The privately-funded startup is launching with 10 high-profile charities, including the American Red Cross, the Humane Society of the United States and Kiva.org. Other charities will be added to the site over time based on demand from user voting. Users can also earn points, badges and prizes based on their activity - a tenant of today's social Web that has been proven to drive deep engagement.

The company hopes to raise further private equity later this year and intends on using the money to develop mobile applications for both the iPhone and Android devices.

Many Web users said they would use social media to seek help for themselves or others during emergencies, the report said, and those users expect first responders to be listening. Almost three out of every four responders said they would expect help to come less than an hour after their first tweet or Facebook post.

But opinion is interestingly divided over the question of whether emergency responders are already monitoring social media. Forty-nine percent said they believe a response agency is probably already responding to any urgent request they might see, and 44 percent answered "it's very likely the organization doesn't even know about this request."

The Red Cross commissioned the survey in advance of an Emergency Social Data Summit set for Thursday, August 12, in Washington, D.C. The meeting will facilitate discussion between representatives of government, social media, emergency response agencies and the non-profit sector about how to handle information that flows through the Web during a disaster.

Social media has proved a fast, reliable way to get information from the ground - exactly what's needed in an emergency. The Red Cross emphasized that the first course of action in an emergency should be to call 911, but that social media is a good backup when phone lines are down or 911 is backed up.

"The social web is creating a fundamental shift in disaster response - one that will ask emergency managers, government agencies and aid organizations to mix time-honored expertise with real-time input from the public," said Gail McGovern, American Red Cross president and CEO. "We need to work together to better respond to that shift."

That the Red Cross is using social media sharing sites like Utterz, Flickr, and YouTube (they even have a Twitter account) is not surprising. We reported in April on a study that appeared in New Scientist magazine that found that social media sites, blogs, and instant messaging services are better at connecting people and providing warnings during emergencies than traditional sources of such information.

During last fall's California wildfires, for example, the best source of breaking information was a combination of Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, blogs, and other tools of citizen journalists. As the fires continued to rage out of control, media poured into CNN's i-Report section, which collects user submitted news photos and videos, and the value of citizen journalism became so apparent that the company eventually spun i-Report off as a standalone web site.

"The real contribution of citizen journalists in a story like this, where whole areas of land are closed off and the fields of greatest danger keep shifting, is in having more eyes on the ground," Thomas Hollihan, a professor of media at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, told the Baltimore Sun. "Citizen journalists are swapping information back and forth - reporting where the flames are now headed or showing images on their cell phones of the fire. And with so much happening so quickly, that kind of information can be really powerful - if it is accurate."

Last spring, when tragedy struck Virginia Tech University, the "I'm ok at VT" group on Facebook famously connected students with families and friends. Hundreds of other support groups, blogs, and web site sprung up on social networking sites and around the web as a way to connect students and help them through troubling times. The Red Cross operates a similar site for connecting disaster survivors with friends and family.

From disaster relief and other non-governmental organizations to citizen journalists and the mainstream media, web 2.0 and mobile technology is being used to connect, inform, and mobilize people during disasters.