CrimeBeat Q&A: How do I get only the messages I need from Nixle?

How do I set up my Nixle account so I’m not barraged by messages that aren’t relevant to me while not missing those that are?

Nixle is a messaging platform used mostly by law enforcement agencies to disseminate important public safety notifications, including information about arrests and emergencies. What you get depends on what you sign up to receive when you register for the free service.

Signing up is as simple as texting 888777 to Nixle and providing a ZIP code. Then every notification from the area will be delivered to the mobile device. But Sonoma County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Spencer Crum advises taking a few more minutes by signing up online and tailoring your registration so you don’t get messages that aren’t relevant to your preferences.

Go to Nixle’s website and create an account, where you can select specific agencies in your area, Crum said. You also can select between text and email notifications.

After that, the number of messages you receive depends on the discretion of the official sending the notification.

“When you overbroadcast, people stop listening,” Crum said.

The Sheriff’s Office tries to be judicious with how many messages it sends, he said.

For example, the Sheriff’s Office sent out an advisory at 2 p.m. Sunday to both email and mobile phones warning people that 911 calls from landlines around Guerneville were not working, advising anyone needing emergency assistance from that area to call dispatch directly.

A second advisory from the Sheriff’s Office went out at 4:47 p.m. saying the problem had been resolved.

The agency had the choice to geotag the message to subscribers in the area, but instead sent it to Nixle subscribers countywide so people in other areas who might be traveling through Guerneville would get the message, Crum said.

The Sheriff’s Office sends other notifications, including community messages and press releases only to email addresses, Crum said.

The Sheriff’s Office has just under ?300,000 subscribers to its Nixle notifications, Crum said. Before the October fires, there were just 30,000 signed up.

Subscribers are made up of ?40,015 email addresses and 365,697 mobile phone numbers - a tally that includes cases where multiple cell numbers are attached to a single account.

The Sheriff’s Office used a free version of the Nixle service until the fires, Crum said. In the first week of the fires, the agency upgraded to a $29,000-a-year version that included the automatic translation of every message into Spanish.

Smaller agencies often qualify for free versions of the service while larger ones do not. Nixle’s parent company Everbridge is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

The CHP Santa Rosa-area office no longer uses Nixle after a licensing dispute between the state agency and the private company, which was promoting individual, paid accounts for all 104 CHP offices, according to Officer Jon Sloat, a CHP spokesman.