Social media is amazingly powerful and social networking sites have been growing at unbelievably fast rates, and they are also starting to replace some mainstream news sources and even the search engines for some people. The fact of the matter is that many social networking sites, mainly Twitter and Facebook, are breaking many news stories before the news networks are. A perfect example was a couple weeks back when the news of the Jakarta bombings broke on Twitter because a user was staying in one of the hotels and tweeted right after the explosion. The power of the social web just keeps growing and is becoming a force that can overtake many traditional media outlets, it will also to continue to hurt the search engines. Here are some of the top stories of the week in the world social media.
There has been some interesting news regarding Twitter, and one of the biggest things that is potentially very scary is the Twitter lawsuit. The Chicago woman had 20 followers on Twitter and she made a Tweet that Horizon Realty claims was damaging to their business. Horizon Realty has filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen for the Tweet that only a small group of people would have seen, that was until Horizon filed the lawsuit and now it is getting so much publicity that millions will hear about it and it will cause them a far bigger reputation problem that the tweet. If Horizon does win the lawsuit it will definitely change social media as we know it because people will start being scared of what they can and cannot say. Twitter also unveiled a new homepage this week, and the new homepage makes the site look and perform more like a search engine. This is just another reason that the search engines should start to worry or else they need to up their game if they want to stay around for the long haul. Real time search is the way of the future and Twitter plans on being right at the center of it all.
Charity in Social Media
This is an awesome story and shows how charitable the social media crowds can be, and this was all done by an amazing musician by the name of Josh Charles. Josh is from The New Orleans area and he was there when Katrina came through. He was evacuated like everyone else and when he returned he saw the devastation that Katrina left in one of the greatest cities in the country. It has been a few years and New Orleans is still in bad shape in many places, half of the population of the city is gone as well. So what Josh did is wrote a song about it that is called Healing Time. What makes this story even better is that Josh is selling the song for 99 cents via Amazon and every penny of that goes to charity to help rebuild New Orleans. Josh paid to record the song out of his own pocket and Amazon also agreed to not take a penny from the sale of the song through there site. This is one of the most amazing things a musician could do and I also gained a lot of respect for Amazon for being very cool about the whole thing as well. Kudos to both Josh and Amazon. Be sure to go download the song at Amazon – Healing Time by Josh Charles, every penny raised goes directly to a great cause. The Social Blade Show also played a part in giving this story more exposure on Thursday night by having Josh on and helping to bring more awareness to the cause socially.
MySpace Mail
MySpace is making the news again all over the web for their next move in trying to stay alive, this time it is in the form of an email service. MySpace decided to launch its own email service and this means you can now have your own myspace.com email address. Since the site has been losing so many users who are abandoning the social network they are doing everything in their power to stay relevant. They already plan on focusing on artists and gaming and this email service is their next offer to the community. The email service has a lot to offer since you will have unlimited file storage, one click embedding of pics and vids, and also an address book that automatically saves your contacts.
YouTube
Last week, the JK Wedding Entrance Video was an instant YouTube success generating over 13 million views in little more than a week. Yesterday, the Official Google Blog showed how they “help[ed] rights holders [of Chris Brown's song: "Forever"] control their content on [youtube].” by placing “buy” links to itunes and amazon music stores. The song is reported as “reaching as high as #4 on the iTunes singles chart and #3 on Amazon’s best selling MP3 list.” As of today it’s #23 on itunes, and #7 on Amazon….sadly, cracked.com’s Official: “Worst Song Ever” is #1.
The Lighter Side of the Social Web
Here are some of the funnier stories that were hot over the last week. One of my favorites was seeing the kid get owned by Mentos and Diet Coke. I am sure that he will think twice about doing that again, but we know there will always be plenty of other people doing stupid things. William Shatner has been one of the nations top actors and entertainers for years now, and this week he delivered once again for us on Conan O’Brien. If you have not seen it then be sure to check out Bill reciting Sarah Palins speech as a poem. Here are some unbelievable pieces of artwork that were drawn with ball point pens and measure up to 10 ft. tall, these are just awesome and I am sure creating them is very time consuming. This costume is an instant classic and had to have easily been the best costume at Comic Con.
