Red Wrangler
Archives > San Fran Olympic Torch Relay is a Social Media Extravaganza!
San Fran Olympic Torch Relay is a Social Media Extravaganza!
Posted by TimSlavin at April 10, 2008
"I then found @SFtorch which was a Twitter profile that was aggregating all of the related tweets - suddenly sitting in my kitchen in London I was party to probably more information than had I been walking the streets of San Francisco. People started tweeting that they didn't know where the torch was headed (as it had been driven off in a bus) however I was was watching the live feed so I knew where it was going - I quickly tweeted @SFtorch, let them know what I was seeing, they then relayed that to everyone following them and BOOM all of a sudden I providing information to the protesters on the ground - shit - this is the most awesome ARG (except that its real) ever."
From Grumblemouse Musings. This is a great example how Twitter and similar technologies can be easily used for social action, in this case, or other purposes. Many years ago, when we lived in LA, I remember jumping on the internet to follow an earthquake in Japan. The media had very little news but people posted images and wrote their experiences.
What makes this story much more interesting is that the traditional media was an unwitting participant. People effortlessly adapted social media technologies like Twitter to extend the "scoop" mentality of the news media, their manic drive to get a story first, in this case, using a helicopter to track the actual location of the Olympic torch. I wonder what the editors or corporate owners of NBC think about their involvement.
When someone tells you Twitter is hopelessly narcissistic, think about this protest. There are many ways that instant, bite-sized communications between networks of people can be harnessed in useful ways.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.redwrangler.com/cgi-bin/ninox/mt-tb.cgi/869
Have A Question?
Just send us an email and we will respond as quickly as possible.
Learn More, Request a Demo, or Sign Up for your free 30 day trial.
Sign Up Now! Only $14.95/month*
First 30 days are free
*Web Professionals: your account is free
when one of your clients has a paid account!
Red Wrangler is used to publish and manage these websites: The Fine Art of Family, Magnets in Motion, Organic Excellence, Becker + Becker, The Wauregan, MRK Photo, GetTished.com, and Maximum Living, among other websites.
What Subscribers Say
"Red Wrangler puts everything in one place. I can use my own web address to find my shopping cart, leads, affiliate site, and all the rest. It's also much easier to tweak our site for search engines. Best of all, I did not have to change hosting or web design."
Cynthia Drasler, CEO
OrganicExcellence.com
read a case study
Tools + How-To Knowledge
Great tools are not enough for web designers and their clients. Unlike other tools, Red Wrangler includes how-to information about all aspects of internet marketing. Some is embedded in the application. Some is in the form of a blog and a list of carefully vetted resources. (The blog has been active since late 2002, at ReachCustomersOnline.com, and has ranked highly with Google on some internet marketing topics, for example, how to code HTML email newsletters.)
Here are recent how-to headlines and resources:
Warning: include(files/headlines-and-resources.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/wrangler/public_html/blog/strix/fns/fns.design.php on line 313
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'files/headlines-and-resources.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in /home/wrangler/public_html/blog/strix/fns/fns.design.php on line 313
Sign Up for Our Email Newsletter
A summary of blog posts is sent every week or two, on Saturdays. News about Red Wrangler is sent every month or so.