I love the idea and the value prop. Excellent concept!
Imagine the press attention and resulting warp speed growth you'll be able to muster when this works just once for someone.
You might get criticism over the design of your landing page, stock bootstrap look and lean nature of your current site. Apart from those simple aesthetics, it's very solid. I would imagine improving those aesthetics is likely necessary if you want to get results from showing it to potential users and stakeholders, however.
Very cool. I know some journalist in dangerous parts of the world and this would be a very cool service. Some thoughts:
Does it support phone calls? I would think it is cool for when someone is abroad and without data and have periodic phone calls to a number they have updated when traveling once they land (through SMS or whatever). Don't pick up the call? Check for a data connection and get data ASAP about location and other metrics. No data? Try to build a phone app that will wait for SMS (probably SMS, so Android only) that will try to send this data back to the center via SMS so that person can follow up.
(I work abroad and I know my institution would pay for that service when people come to more dangerous areas, for sure.)
Also, is the site designing Foundation or Bootstrap? Looks like the former AFAIK, and it looks nicer than the Bootstrapped sites I am used to (granted I have not checked up on the new hotness post-v3 rollout).
Yes, adding the ability to Check-In using an SMS number is on my wish list too. The SMS provider I am currently playing with allows this but not looked into it seriously yet.
Whether or not I would be taking on liability by providing the service has been discussed, yes. I'm not exactly sure where the conversation will end though.
Imagine the press attention and resulting warp speed growth you'll be able to muster when this works just once for someone.
You might get criticism over the design of your landing page, stock bootstrap look and lean nature of your current site. Apart from those simple aesthetics, it's very solid. I would imagine improving those aesthetics is likely necessary if you want to get results from showing it to potential users and stakeholders, however.