More Digital blog

Ok seriously. You turn your head for two seconds and there it is: another product from Google. As it happens, I was thinking about creating an entry based on an article I read about Googling v Binging when BUZZ, out of seemingly nowhere, pops up. Following the Tweets and FB comments along the way, the biggest questions seem to be ‘What is it?’ and ‘Are you going to use it?’

Upon its release and my discovery of said release, Buzz had not been activated on my Gmail account, but within about an hour it was (upping my Google paranoia). Since then (it’s been three days) the majority of posts I’ve seen have come from Mashable. Mashable and I are really developing quite a relationship, I’d say. Good old Pete. I commented on a couple of their posts, read a bunch of the articles about Buzz that they have posted, read a couple more articles from other sources and have basically been sitting on the topic for a couple of days.

I must admit that I’m starting to feel anxiety over the pressure to ‘get’ new products and understand their usefulness. This anxiety is greatly reduced as I read comments on FB status and within Twitter – my personal fave at the moment is from John_Cleese: ‘Do not, I repeat, do not, confuse me with this Buzz stuff’. You said it, John. First reviews indicate that it doesn’t integrate with FB, as Twitter does, and as AOL is starting to as well. However, Buzz does integrate with Twitter so your Twitter posts can automatically go out to your Buzz contacts, but that’s not 100% integration so you still have to have both accounts. The question remains, why would I start using Buzz when I already have Twitter? Because it’s integrated into my gmail? Well…hmmm. I’m already annoyed that the few responses to comments I have made have gone directly into my email (you can set up a filter and that won’t happen, but I think messages should, by default, land in a separate location. This makes me want to treat Buzz like email, or IM. And, as if to illustrate this, when I posted ‘Why would I use Buzz over Twitter?’ the response I got was from a friend (who doesn’t use Twitter) saying ‘So we can talk like this now, too’. I had to explain that if she wanted to talk, we could IM through gmail, email through gmail, or even speak through gmail, but that Buzz was meant for a different purpose. The purpose that Twitter has already established, I think. Why didn’t Google just BUY Twitter? Furthermore? Visually, Buzz is messy. Following Mashable means that I have to scroll, forever, to get to other posts from my other contacts. On top of Mashable’s posts, I also see all of the 458 comments on said post. Seriously? No thanks.

Interestingly, while Twitter’s inception was based on the question ‘What are you doing?’, it seems to have evolved into ‘What’s going on?’. That seems to be where it’s most useful. Not to digress TOO much, but this morning, from the window of my hotel room, I could see a massive plume of smoke (that was precipitated by a huge flame) and wondered if it was a fire or if I was seeing things, again. Within 10 minutes of noting it, Newyorkology retweeted a post that there had been a transformer explosion, causing a fire in the exact location where I had seen the smoke (and fire). Further proof I can be as nosy (and lazy) as I want from the couch of the hotel room.

All this to say that if Twitter can deliver that to me – faster than a Domino’s pizza? Why would I switch to Buzz. Just so I could start saying “I’m going to Buzz that”, I guess. I never have been a fan of the Twitter usage of the word ‘Tweet’.

There have been a lot of faith-restoring stories coming out of the social media world of late. Last week I wrote about the Facebook campaign that has helped save the life of young British student Philip Pain who fell seven-stories in Mexico and was in desperate need of blood. This week I want to acknowledge the huge effort made by social networking pages to help the people of Haiti.

Only minutes after the devastating earthquake floored the tiny Caribbean nation last Tuesday, the online world was mobilised and ready to help in any way it could.

One of the organisations leading the way was The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) who have now raised over £25 million after their appeal was announced on Twitter on last Wednesday.

The DEC has utilised Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube over the past week and their Chief Executive, Brendan Gormley, has publicly praised the significant role these social media sites have had in their campaign.

Mr. Gormley said, “Social networking has proven itself as a valuable addition to the fundraising machine. I’m thrilled that we have been able to quickly communicate and engage the UK public, who have in turn responded with tremendous generosity to help the people of Haiti who so urgently need our help.

“Their donations mean our member agencies can continue to source and deliver the emergency supplies needed like safe water, shelter, medicine and food. We hope people will continue to give their support so that more emergency aid can be added to what will be a massive humanitarian effort.”

DEC reported on Facebook that Flickr has been used to host images from the DEC’s member agencies, with 34,000 views of the DEC account on Friday, while a video of the DEC broadcast appeal has attracted nearly 4,000 views on YouTube.

Not only has social media been an outstanding tool to stimulate aid and increase donations, it has also played a vital role in spreading news and remarkably, locating victims.

“This is the first example we’ve seen where that sense of global community has been expressed in action, for example using social media technology to get the story out faster, to locate victims, and to give instantaneous donations,” said James Norrie, a media professor at RTS’s School of IT Management. “That’s an amazing use of a social media tool.”

The events in Haiti, while both shocking and saddening, have reinforced social media’s undoubted ability for social good.

I think Tom Brown, writing for The Burlington Free Press, captured it well when he wrote, “I’ve heard critics of social media say that users of communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook only want to talk to, and about, themselves and their friends. The earthquake in Haiti might help change the minds of some of those critics”.

“When people can respond that quickly and in such numbers to help their fellow man, then there certainly is hope”.

To make a donation to the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk or call 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any post office or high street bank, send a cheque made payable to ‘DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal’ to ‘PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA’ or text GIVE to 70077 to donate £5. £5 goes to DEC. You pay £5 plus your standard network SMS rate.

So, Rage Against The Machine has snatched UK’s beloved Christmas number one spot from X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.

When Jon and Tracy Morter organised a Facebook group last month their sole aim was to end the monopoly Simon Cowell and his X-Factor buddies had on the coveted UK Christmas single. What it turned out to be was something slightly bigger.

For those of you who somehow missed this story. Jon and Tracy Morter are a couple from Essex who started a Facebook group called “Rage Against The Machine For Christmas Number 1” because they were “fed up” with X-Factor’s four-year chart dominance during festive season.

“Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No 1? Me too … So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track ‘KILLING IN THE NAME’ from December 13^th as a protest to the X Factor monotony?”. With these words, the battle began.

The idea was to encourage ‘real music’ fans to buy American rock-rappers Rage Against the Machine’s expletive-filled 1992 single “Killing in the Name Of” in the lead up to Christmas in order to beat McElderry’s “The Climb” to the Christmas number one spot.

So, why did they choose a 17 year-old song with the words “’F— YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” repeated 17 times over a more appropriately-angled, perhaps family-friendly, song for the festive period?

“It’s a rallying cry,” Mr Morter told NME.COM. “It’s been taken on by thousands in the group as a defiance to Simon Cowell’s ‘music machine’.”

“We picked a song that was controversial and has a strong message, and it just seems to have captured everyone’s imagination,” Mrs Morter added.

When he first heard of the campaign, Cowell labeled it as “stupid” and “cynical” and claimed it was specifically directed at him. In the end though, Cowell was gracious in defeat and called Jon and Tracy personally to congratulate them on a “well-deserved win” and a “great fight”.

A great fight it was.

In the beginning, no one really expected them to actually pull this thing off. How could two, relatively average, people from the small town of South Woodham Ferrers in Essex possibly defeat the multi-million dollar empire of music mogul Cowell?

The thing is, this little Facebook group struck a cord with people. It was time to make a stand. It was time stick it to ‘the man’.

What this campaign demonstrated was, by using social media as the medium the ‘little guy’ can make a real difference in this world. When enough people get together and are motivated to really give something a shake, anything is possible.

“The campaign behind RATM is interesting in its own right. If only because, once again, it demonstrates the power — if it can be called that — of the emergent internet radicalism,” writes Phil BC at A Very Public Sociologist.

“With very little time and cost, people are able to register their protest/opposition without the rigmarole of standing in the rain, listening to boring speeches, and beating off the desperate efforts of Trot paper sellers.”

Captain Jako at Frank Owen’s Paintbrush has a similar view on the campaign, “It once again points to the democratic potential of the internet. A grassroots effort coordinated over social networking sites and with zilch budget has proved more effective than the largely traditional marketing techniques used by wealthy industry bigwigs like Simon Cowell to get even more money out of UK consumers.”

Just five years ago, a campaign like Jon and Tracy Morter’s was almost impossible to achieve. However, in Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites, society now has a very real vehicle for change.