Viral Power
April 16th 2011 07:36
The viral power of Facebook and Twitter is in evidence again in two more particular situations.
The lesser one is recorded in an article in The Guardian, which discusses the various causes celebrities have got behind and in doing so have managed to change minds, hearts, and occasional annoy people who want to do things to make money and find they can't.
Here's the relevant paragraph in the article:
Social media has also played a crucial part in increasing famous people's influence – even if they do not use it. [Philip] Pullman's emergence as a figurehead in the defence of libraries, for instance, came about quite fortuitously. "It still puzzles me," he admits, when I speak to him. "Some of the people who were concerned about the closure of Oxfordshire's libraries asked if I'd speak at a public meeting, and I said yes I would, because I feel strongly about this." This small event went viral, as a transcript of Pullman's words was linked more than 25,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. "I didn't think it was a particularly good speech," he says, bemused. "But suddenly people were quoting it."
The second instance is rather more intriguing, and the end result has been the production of a book (an ebook at this stage, but due to be published in hardcopy later this year) which includes the stories of a range of people caught up in the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
In just over a week, a group of unpaid professional and citizen journalists who met on Twitter created a book to raise money for Japanese Red Cross earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. In addition to essays, artwork and photographs submitted by people around the world, including people who endured the disaster and journalists who covered it, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake contains a piece by Yoko Ono, and work created specifically for the book by authors William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein.
One of the great values of this book is that all the proceeds go directly to the Japanese Red Cross.
The lesser one is recorded in an article in The Guardian, which discusses the various causes celebrities have got behind and in doing so have managed to change minds, hearts, and occasional annoy people who want to do things to make money and find they can't.
Here's the relevant paragraph in the article:
Social media has also played a crucial part in increasing famous people's influence – even if they do not use it. [Philip] Pullman's emergence as a figurehead in the defence of libraries, for instance, came about quite fortuitously. "It still puzzles me," he admits, when I speak to him. "Some of the people who were concerned about the closure of Oxfordshire's libraries asked if I'd speak at a public meeting, and I said yes I would, because I feel strongly about this." This small event went viral, as a transcript of Pullman's words was linked more than 25,000 times on Facebook and Twitter. "I didn't think it was a particularly good speech," he says, bemused. "But suddenly people were quoting it."
The second instance is rather more intriguing, and the end result has been the production of a book (an ebook at this stage, but due to be published in hardcopy later this year) which includes the stories of a range of people caught up in the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
One of the great values of this book is that all the proceeds go directly to the Japanese Red Cross.
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