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When Go Daddy and Verizon introduced controversial policies last week, consumers launched into action, and with the help of social tools, very quickly overturned wildly unpopular approaches — proving that balance of power has clearly shifted in the company-consumer relationship.

Read my full commentary on Internet Evolution.

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On a day when Facebook pissed off a good portion of its user base with changes to the way it presents information in the news stream, I write about a social startup called Unthink that gives you total control of your data. But is it enough to attract a critical mass of users?

Read my full commentary on Internet Evolution.

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With Google Plus, it’s time to start taking Google seriously as a social networking competitor.

Read my full commentary on Internet Evolution.

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If your company is not monitoring social media as part of your marketing effort, you are missing a golden opportunity to understand your customers better.

But companies need to not only monitor the social media stream, they need to find ways to measure and understand what’s happening there.

Read my full commentary on the Ness SPL Blog.

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Facebook announces new deal system, which unlike Groupon won’t necessarily offer big discounts, but will instead provide a way to get together at interesting events in real life.

Read my full post on Internet Evolution.

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For a couple of years, the Flip was *the* way to shoot and share video on social networks, but as the video capabilities of smart phones increased, the Flip became an after thought. This is my ode to a darn good piece of technology whose time came and went.

Read my ode to the Flip video camera on Internet Evolution.

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As companies realize the advantages of engaging in online social media channels, they are looking for ways to measure the success of that engagement and IBM has introduced new products to help.

Read my full post on BSM Hub.

Guest Post by Thomas Morrison

Social media is no longer simply about allowing your friends to see what you are thinking or for posting photos of your family vacation to Aruba. Social media has quickly become the most influential factors in grassroots socio-political organization. The January 25 revolution in Egypt gained a major foothold as a result of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. Individuals have used social media to increase government transparency and mobilize like minded individuals.

On January 25 2011 after a successful revolution had occurred in Tunisia, many Egyptians took to the streets protesting government corruption, unemployment, poverty as well as the country’s 30 – year autocratic rule by former President Hosini Mubarak. Protesters used social media like Facebook and Twitter to show outsiders exactly what was happening on the ground, plan and arrange protests and the governmental and military response to the protesters. After the second day of mass protest in Egypt, and after Associated Press filmed an Egyptian activist and protestor being gunned down, the Internet, texts messages and PDA access to the Internet was shut down by Egyptian government. However, the government’s effort to seriously reduce communication within Egypt was unsuccessful as a series of transnational human rights activists, bloggers, translators and social media organizations dedicated to free speech used chat rooms, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to relay messages from protestors, journalists and human rights activists inside Egypt.

They all had intentions of assisting activists inside Egypt to further political organization and social mobilization while also allowing the rest of the world to witness minute by minute news on just exactly what was going on inside of the country. Two of the most valuable aspects of social media are its ability to make social organization easier and more effective. The social media used by Egyptian protestors not only allowed individuals who shared common political ideas come together, but also provided a medium to plan concrete action. Secondly, social media increases government transparency and accountability. No longer can the global audience be kept in the dark about what is going on in another country. There are too many interconnected individuals using social media creating a transnational network armed with information.

On February 9th former President Bill Clinton spoke at New York University. The president was speaking on the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the 1995 Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia genocide and war. President Clinton compared the use of constant news media in the case of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Genocide with the role of social media in aiding communication during the recent revolution in Egypt. While the former president said the constant news coverage during the Bosnia-Herzegovina Genocide is nothing close to the effect of social media used in Egypt, both captured global attention at different points in time as a result of the desire for information. Clinton reflected back on the type and quality of technology available when he was president in 1995 saying, “There were just 50 Internet sites and the average cell phone weighed 5 pounds”. Alongside personal counselor Doug Band, Clinton heads up the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). Mr. Douglas Band also oversees plenty of foreign operations at the Clinton Global Initiative.

While the Bosnia Herzegovina genocide and the recent revolution in Egypt are to completely separate events with not much similar in politics or history, the human desire for information is very much the same. At many points in history individuals have combined ingenuity, passion and technology so as to link themselves with people and societies far from themselves.

Thomas Morrison is a co-editor of Everything Left and writes about different topics which are progressive and current.” You can follow him on Twitter under @twmorrison75.

Photo by neotint on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Image by Alex Chis via Flickr

When Google Executive Wael Ghonim was arrested and detained by Egypitian police, it put a Google employee in the center of the drama, and it also highlighted Google’s lack of social tools.

Read my full commentary on Internet Evolution.

By encouraging communication, social networks have the potential to foster creativity, sharing, and social good.

Read my full commentary on Internet Evolution.

Photo by wonder_j on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.