On this day, June 19th, 2008, the news brings to our attention the Internet-savvy Red Guard, the dilemma of modern collective action, public choice theory, and much, much more.

• Newspapers are bad at flash mob coverage.
• Illegal flash mob pool parties, Google, and the cops who get pulled into it all.
• “New Media” is old hat.
• www.thechairmanismyhomeboy.com
• The left, collective action, our generation, and dilemma.
• When was the last time you really put some thought into public choice theory?
• And finally, a pretty great analysis of all of the numbers emerging on increased Internet and politics.

-Filed in News

“The interesting thing with the Internet and online promotion is that for the longest time, corporations have been stealing underground methods of advertisement. They were absorbing methods of dissemination, ones we basically created because we were broke, into their own marketing tactics. For the first time, we are in a position so subvert their tactics of dissemination for our own benefit. For the first time, using Facebook and email tools, I feel like I am on a similar playing field.”

-Joe Ahearn of SleepWhenDeadNYC.

“Don’t underestimate Facebook,” says Joe Ahearn of the social networking site.

[Along with Entertainment4Every1 and showISmonster] SleepWhenDeadNYC, led by Ahearn, put together a huge show that was scheduled to take place at the Jamaica Bay Research Wildlife Preserve. Over 10 bands were slated to preform and over 400 people had RSVPed via Facebook. However, a little over twelve hours before the show was to go off, the weather report pushed the Parks Department to revoke the permit that SleepWhenDead had worked for over a month to procure. It would be another month before they could host another show.

Fortunately for them, with less than a day to maneuver, they moved the show to an accommodating venue in Brooklyn. What trouble did they run into along the way to doing so?

In the past, Ahearn has used a mailing list service and worked with a “decently sized” list, though he was recently booted for “not properly documenting” how he collects his subscribers. And since there is a cap on how many emails can be sent through Gmail in a day (500), his 1000-contact-strong mailing list is too big to manage there.

So in this event, he turned to Facebook.

“One of the bands started the [Facebook] ‘event.’ As a side-note, when I organize these things, I don’t usually let people see [the RSVP list]. ‘Cause I invite 900 peoople and if it looks like not a lot of people are going to show up, I don’t want someone to think, “Oh shit. Uh…” and not come.

“This one was big. Right before show got moved, 400 people marked that they were going to be there. But it was opened under this other kid’s page and if it is opened from by someone else, they have to make you an administrator [and that didn't happen]. So I kept calling him over the past two weeks telling him to make me an admin, but he didn’t know how to. And it was frustrating, especially when it came to moving the show around.”

Fortunately, at the last minute, the message was disseminated accordingly by various folks related to the show and it was an overwhelming success.

-Filed in Uncategorized

On this day, June 4th, 2008, the news brings to our attention the flash mob’s cooler cousin, digital ninjas, “computer literate” terrorism, guerrilla campaigning in Idaho, the 10-year-old’s digital pedophile costume, and more.

• Forbes takes a look at Kiva and its founders, Matt and Jessica Flannery.
• Charlie Beckett of the Polis Journalism Society: Does the Internet make things more democratic?
• SleepWhenDeadNYC puts on a steroid-pumped flash-mob festival. Is this the flash mobs more mature cousin? What is this?
• Perhaps talk of Egypt and Facebook activism will fill the void in conversation choices left by the end of primary season.
• Adeline Flash Mob advertises upcoming (ninja) mob, video.
• Have you heard about the 10-year-old girl who masked herself as an Internet pedophile?
• A look at Guerrilla campaigning through the eyes of Smokefree Boise.
• And finally, there is no shortage of reportage on the rise of “computer literate” terrorism.

-Filed in News

On this day, May 13th, 2008, the news brings to our attention the Internet ambitions of Bob “The Spoiler” Barr, angry message-board-frequenting investors, “Islam’s (Facebook) Advance,” sluggish fundraising for Myanmar, and more.

• “Islam’s Advance”? Facebook.
• Investors take their trash talk to the Internet.
• Fundraising for Myanmar is apparently “sluggish.”
• Campaigning on a budget is made easy with the wonders of Internet video - Bet you didn’t know that.
• Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr brushes off “unelectable” criticism by suggesting that the Internet will be a valuable organizing tool for his campaign.

-Filed in Uncategorized

On this day, May 12th, 2008, the news brings to our attention Chinese organizers 2.0, social media against Obama, a righteous answer to YouTube, hasty (and frightening) repercussions are taken against Egyptian strike organizers and more.

• Feeling otherwise alone, mommies find a friend in online social networking.
• Human Rights watch claims that an activist who used Facebook to organize a general strike in Egypt was beaten and threatened with rape.
• A plan to grab the Olympic torch by way of flash mob was thwarted when the organizer was arrested by the Chinese government.
• Social media leveraged against Sen. Obama.
• Facebook quickly announces its answer to MySpace Data Availability.
• Obama channels Alinsky, who encouraged the importance of getting people invested into an issue by making any contribution possible, no matter how small it might be.
• Chinese dissenters are coordinating general strikes by way of Facebook and SMS.
• Do you find YouTube to be offensive due to its relative godlessness?
• And finally, if you don’t like a candidate, the Internet is a lovely place for a smear campaign (Bonus quiz: Which Democratic candidate refuses to put his hand on the Bible, preferring instead to put it on the Quran?)

-Filed in Uncategorized

On this day, May 8th, 2008, the news brings to our attention bloggers for Burma, Internet fund raising as means of life support, tips for sustaining an online community by Flickr, the swelling of the social networking community, meditations on the destruction of the “netizen” by way of gadgetry, zany acts of hilarious consequence, and more.

• Apparently, the Facebook community hates Microsoft.
• Internet fund raising is reportedly keeping Sen. Clinton in the race.
• Online community membership “swells” as the market for social networking software triples.
• Flash Mob, noun, “A sort of secret event where a select few are told to gather and perform some zany act of hilarious consequence at a random place and time.”
• Burmese blogs help to mobilize fund raising efforts in response to cyclone-related destruction.
• George Oats of Flickr very generously discusses how to Internet communities best flourish.
• Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, assets that that our “tethered appliances” like iPhones and Blackberrys create two classes of Internet-user, and this gets in the way of positive netizenry.
• Finally, if your local paper is shutting down due to layoffs, entrepreneurs like Rich Carr might suggest that you start your own news source online.

-Filed in Uncategorized

On this day, May 6th, 2008, the news brings to our attention Rosanna Arquette’s [Internet] viral appeal, how mobile banking will help to transform microfinance, how Serbs are using the Internet and 2008’s place as the year of the “cyber campaign,” and more.

• After a decade and a half of hype about being a “transformative agent for politics,” 2008 is already becoming known as the “Year of the Cyber Campaign.”
• Fox Business examines how mobile banking will transform microfinance and Eric Everson examines the examination [and more].
• Struggling? Facebook it.
• A gander at how folks in Mozambique and Serbia are using the Internet in times of national transition.
• Looking for a way to bring attention to your cause? Call Rosanna Arquette (and Ellen Page and Judd Apatow and maybe Jennifer Aniston), have them appear in a series of videos and encourage supporters to “spread them like wildfire.”
• And finally, in my day, music blogs were where snotty know-it-alls typed about their predicable infatuations with post-punk, no-wave, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, and ironic appreciations for the musical stylings of Frank Stallone — not bases for organizing concerts.

-Filed in Uncategorized

On this day, April 29th, 2008, the news brings to our attention flash mobs in Bath, Egyptian outrage taken to the web, Gordon Brown’s fund raising envy, and more on the rising popularity of shareholder activism:

• Egyptians are using Facebook to defy government attempts to keep incidents of police brutality quiet. One young woman, Esraa Abdel Fatah, 27, is highlighted for or organizational efforts using the site.
• A flash mob takes on Bath Abbey. The mob freezes for five minutes, people stare, and the The Bath Chronicle deems it a success (seriously).
• UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is apparently looking to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for tips on raising lots of cash via the Internet.
• Speaking of Sen. Obama, it’s not just the money that he’s raising online that will potentially make him a powerbroker in the party, even if he loses.
• And finally, another discussion about the rise of shareholder activism and it’s impact on US corporations as the economy continues on a downturn.

-Filed in Uncategorized