What's been happening around #iranelection has been truly remarkable. The State Department even asked twitter to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians disputing the election. The role of social tools in major global events just seems to get bigger, and deeper.
One of my favourite Clay Shirky quotes is about how tools "don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring". In his May TED talk, which has just been posted, he talks about the scale of change we are amidst – the change from 20th century media – media that is good at creating groups but no good at creating conversation (broadcast), and media
that is good at conversation but no good at creating groups (like the telephone), to "the largest increase in expressive capability in human history" where "innovation can happen anywhere that people feel that we're in this together".
I've read a couple of things recently bemoaning the 'social media revolution' as a misnomer. Clay is right – the real change is in the connectivity of the modern world. Is this a revolution or is it not a revolution? It doesn't matter. The point is that things have changed for good.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
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