Social Media Is Literally Changing The World

What a novel time to launch a blog that I’ve been wanting to bring to life for quite some time. I’ve been longing to talk about my potentially unhealthy obsession with everything that social media encompasses, and with the current situation in the Middle East, the true power of social media and its amazing reach will be much easier for the average internet user to grasp.

Before the last two weeks or so, the term “social media” was somewhat uncommon to your average person, but with major news channels dropping the term every five seconds when they speak, I think it’s to the point where average people will say, “yeah, social media, I’ve heard of that!”

The ongoing protest in Iran is becoming more crazy by the second (literally), and there are many websites/services out there that are helping the unfairly censored Iranians get their messages and heart stopping videos to the outside world. Here is a quick list of social media sites that are being used as communication channels:

1. Twitter – Popular micro-blogging site. A majority of the action is being posted here. Messages are limited to 140 characters, but often times pictures and videos are linked in the short messages. Twitter has recently taken over the social media world with the multitude of celebrity endorsements, but more importantly, Twitter is undeniably the fastest way to get breaking news around the world.

2. YouTube – Surely most people have heard of YouTube, Google’s video posting site. A majority of the videos you’re seeing on the big news networks are hosted on YouTube – this is mainly due to people on the ground in Iran using their cellphones for direct uploads to the popular video sharing site. YouTube has played a significant role in allowing the world to see what’s going on.

3. Facebook – Hands down the most popular social networking site. Facebook also has micro-blogging functions where many protesters are able to put out mass messages to anyone interested about what’s going on at the current time. Also, the opposition leader has an official Facebook page where official historic announcements have already been made.

There are quite a few more websites and services out there that are facilitating the flow of information and news for the world to see, but the three above are easily the most popular.

I’m going to assume by now that you’ve seen extensive news coverage of the ongoing protest in Iran, so I’d like you to take a step back and think about how we would react if we didn’t have social media to help us understand what’s really going on. Crazy, right? The world is changing so fast, and like it or not, social media is fueling that change in many positive ways. For social media/technology junkies like myself, I feel lucky to be alive during such a technologically dramatic time in history.

This is just the first post (I needed some meat for this new theme), so stick around, as I plan on contributing regularly and eventually bribing a few authors to contribute posts of their own. Thanks!