Social Media’s Killer App – Revolution

I’m not real hot on social media. I don’t desire to live my life on a Facebook wall and have no desire to reconnect with people I lost touch with 25 years ago. Generally there was a reason we lost touch 😉

However it strikes me that perhaps the real “killer-app” for social media is Revolution. The unrest we are currently witnessing in the Arab world is astounding. More striking is the role that social media (and I have to include cell phones) has played. This really hit me when I was watching the news yesterday showing scenes on the aftermath in Egypt. There were a bunch of crudely written graffiti scrawls saying “Thank you Facebook” …astounding!

I imagine that many other repressive regimes are staying up late trying to figure out how to maintain control. In particular think of China. Tiananmen Square happened in 1989, there were no cell phones, and there was no Internet. Imagine if there had been. We certainly live in interesting times.