The news also came out the day before the 15th anniversary of the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who became the namesake of the national Amber Alert Program.

By teaming up with Facebook, which surpassed Google as the , the Amber Alert program has the potential to reach a very large audience. Last July, announced that it had a worldwide user base of .

"That's a nice thing FaceBook is doing," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "It has some potential. It's probably not that great on short-term emergencies, but a lot of people spend a lot of time with Facebook. Certainly more than looked at the back of milk cartons, back in the day."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at or subscribe to . Her e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Web 2.0 and Web Apps Topic Center.