Image via Wikipedia

Shaquille O’Neil retired on Twitter last week with dignity and class and his online reputation firmly intact. Other celebrity tweeters (and all of us for that matter) should take note of how it’s done.

Read my full commentary on Internet Evolution.

Image via Wikipedia

I have lived in Massachusetts for my entire life. Yesterday for the first time ever, I heard tornado warning sirens go off. I gathered my kids and headed for the basement with my iPhone. 

From there, I texted with my wife who was at work. I communicated with friends on Facebook and Twitter and I monitored the progress of the storm on my Weather Channel iPhone app.

What I didn’t do, at least right away, was turn on the TV and see what the news was saying about it. When I did turn on the news much later, I found I was getting better information from my social network than I was from them.

Channel 22 in Springfield was doing a good job tracking the storm and got some fantastic video of the funnel cloud, but I heard about building damage from my wife, who reported a colleague with parents in Springfield had told her the neighborhood was a mess with roofs off and lots of major damage.

The TV news (based in that city) didn’t begin to report this until much later.

All that said, there are lessons to be learned here. First of all, my phone has become my communications center. Up until the second half of this century we would have headed to TVs. We now head to our phones. I thought it was telling that a friend on Twitter told me, she hadn’t even considered turning on the TV.

It also showed that our social networks are better equipped to deliver real time news than the news outlets using conventional news gathering methods.

That I was able to get as much news as I did without turning on the TV amazed me. It was a devistating day for many folks. I’m grateful that my family was spared, but I also found it interesting that in time of crisis, my tool of choice, was my phone.

Cross-posted on by Ron Miller.

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.

I came across a Chrome extension that lets you Tweet any page as though it had a ‘Tweet’ button (even when it doesn’t). It’s incredibly convenient. In fact, you get the same Tweet dialog box you see when you click a Twitter ‘Tweet’ button (as opposed to say Tweet Meme).

Go to the Tweet Button by Shareaholic page on Chrome  and follow the instructions for installing.

Once it’s in place, you just select it and the Tweet dialog pops up (like the one shown above). That’s it.  I’m sure you’ll love it as much as I do.

I’ve let another week slip by without a Friday 5, but fear not I’m back again this week and ready to roll. I had a good excuse. I spent a week on the West coast visiting the ARMA 2010 conference–that’s records managers and governance folks– and Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara. I was also hard at work on an up coming article for EContent Magazine on the connection between content and location.

While I was away, Facebook came up with a new messaging system. Doesn’t it seem like they have a new announcement every week? They are beginning to remind of me of Google in more ways than one. Speaking of Google, they quietly released a new service, much like Yelp, that lets you rate local businesses. I will try to post something on it next week. Then there a couple of upstarts: Path, the so-called personal social network and RockMelt, the new socially aware browser.

Anyway, here’s this week’s Friday 5:

• Facebook’s New Messaging System Explained [VIDEO] – Mashable.
• RockMelt promises Facebook-linked web browsing on Chromium – Electronista.
• Google Hotpot: Social Layers Or Reinforced Box? - Outspoken Media.
• How to Control Your Privacy With Foursquare and Other Geoloaction Services – Social Media Examiner.
• Path — Introducing The Personal Network – Path Blog.

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

Guess which giant social network was making news this week? OK, it was Facebook…again. They continue to develop their place-based business and I for one think they are definitely heading in the right direction with that, especially trying to create a link between location and commerce, part of what they announced this week. They also announced a single sign-on using your FB log-in. Not sure how I feel about that. Not something I would use until it shakes out and I see how it works.

Enough of FB though. Here’s this week’s Friday 5:

• 5 Tips for Improving Your Social Customer Service – Mashable.
• 4% of online Americans use location-based services – Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life.
• Great interview: candid, disruptive Mark Zuckerberg — Scobleizer.
• 5 Ways To Fix SEO’s Reputation Problem – Outspoken Media.
• Tweet from the top of Everest – Slate.

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

How many times have you been asked to share your Twitter log-in information to get at a Twitter service? Does it make you nervous? These days, you can use your Twitter log-in to get on many sites and services.

Sure, it’s convenient, but then you’ve shared your user name and password. Did you know that Twitter now gives you complete control over that log-in information and you can shut down access to any service instantly in your Twitter profile.

Here’s how:

1. Go to Twitter.com.
2. Click the Profile link.
3. Click Edit Your Profile.
4. Click Connections.
5. Review the list.
6. If you see any don’t trust or no longer want to give access to your account, click Revoke Access.

That’s it. By revoking access, that site no longer has permission to access your account. It’s a way to give you control over your account. I would recommend checking this from time to time and if you have given permission to a service, and you have second thoughts, simply revoke access and your account is secure.

Another week and our favorite social networking whipping boy, Facebook, stuck its foot in it again this week with news of an application privacy breach in applications like Farmville. Not that’s it that shocking that Farmville would be doing something with your data, but they’re not supposed to. Both Facebook and Zynga, Farmville’s developer have some ‘splaining to do.

Without further delay, this weeks five links in social media:

• Facebook in Online Privacy Breach; Applications Transmitting Identifying Information – WSJ.com.
• Apple and Facebook CEOs Meet For Dinner To Iron Out Ping | Cult of Mac.
• 5 Ways Businesses Blow it on Twitter – Blogging Tips.com.
• The Facebook News Feed: How it Works,10 Biggest Secrets - The Daily Beast.
• Corporate Blogging Goes Mainstream – eMarketer.

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