Social media as social difference maker

LOS ANGELES: From SOPA to Ellen DeGeneres, protesting keeps getting more social.

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, digital agitation has entered the mainstream allowing people to affect change at a dizzying speed. Going viral is no longer reserved for cute puppy videos.

Social networking has moved into new areas of social protest, Tim Stevens, editor-in-chief of the technology blog Engadget, said Friday, shortly after Susan G. Komen Foundation reversed course on pulling Planned Parenthood funding in wake of a fierce social media protest. “It’s not just techies anymore,” he said. “It’s people who are interested in women’s rights and other civil liberties.”

Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation bowed to blow back on Facebook, Twitter and other digital platforms on Friday. It apologized for its original decision to withdraw support for breast cancer screening at Planned Parenthood.

That viral protest ignited this week, around the same time as a social networking uproar sprang up against a conservative group’s attempt to force J.C. Penny to ditch openly-gay spokeswoman Ellen DeGeneres. The Stand Up for Ellen campaign attracted thousands of supporters, who signed an online petition sponsored by GLAAD. That outpouring of support emboldened the retailer to stand by the popular talk show host.

These successful movements come on the heels of a stunning online campaign by technology companies and average citizens against two pieces of federal legislation, the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), that were seen as Draconian and censorious.

After millions tweeted and posted their displeasure on Facebook and sites like Wikipedia went dark, the Hollywood studios pushing the acts and their congressional counterparts were forced to go back to the drawing board.

“There’s a new political and media ecology that social networking provides and it’s not controlled by the mainstream media,” said Andrew Rasiej, the chairman of New York Tech MeetUp, a key opponent of SOPA and PIPA. “It’s controlled by citizens who are able to wield power at a speed that has the mainstream media, the politicians and the institutional players in shock.”

Some of these causes would have inspired protests in the past, but the rate at which a movement materializes, intensifies and concludes has accelerated from years to months to, in the most recent instances, a matter of days.

“It’s not just the agitators who are figuring out how to stage these eruptions of dissent,” Clive Thompson, a columnist for Wired, told TheWrap. “The people on the other side, who are being agitated against, are now aware that they can’t ignore this.”

Not everyone is so convinced that Twitter and Facebook are the difference makers in these equations.

Writing in the Huffington Post on Friday, political analyst Andy Ostroy argued: “Let’s not take away from the power of protest, and what we as citizens can achieve, by wasting so much time fawning over technology’s role in all of it.

At the end of the day, it’s the people who use Twitter and Facebook, just as they used other media throughout history to foment dissent and harness protest.”

That may be the case, but before Twitter and Facebook got hold of them, SOPA and Susan G. Komen were hardly household names. In short order, they became public enemy number one for many socially networked people and the subject of articles and television segments across the media landscape.

“It used to be that social media would play off something that happened in the mainstream news, but that role has reversed and Twitter and Facebook have become the ringmaster that’s setting the agenda,” Rasiej said. AGENCIES

Miramax streaming chunk of library on Facebook

TrendPK.com: Studios have explored streaming movies on Facebook. Warner Bros. blasted the social networking tool with their “The Dark Knight” while Paramount and Universal has dipped their to in the water. But Miramax is about to make a major splash with the largest offering of titles in the short history of movie streaming.

PaidContent reports that the Miramax eXperience is going to make 20 titles available to rent in the U.S., with 10 being made available in the U.K. and Turkey. The report goes on to say that France and Germany will have access to these titles in the near future.

“Chicago,” “Cold Mountain,” and “Good Will Hunting” are among the first titles added in the first wave of programming, which also includes “Pulp Fiction” and “No Country for Old Men.”

“We wanted to fish where the fish are,” explained Miramax CEO Mike Lang. “We could have created the most robust Miramax.com in the world and other than my family members, who would be there?”

But the app doesn’t end with streaming. The report says the Miramax eXperience “includes a game that allows people to cast friends in various roles of Miramax movies; as they play, they can unlock bonus content that’s not otherwise visible.”

Facebook now wants a say in computer hardware

PALO ALTO: Facebook, the world’s largest social network, wants to get in on computer hardware as well.

The company that revolutionized social networking on the Internet has teamed up with some of tech hardware’s biggest names — Hewlett Packard Co, Dell Inc, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel Corp — to launch the “open compute project.”

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the project aims to offer specifications and designs for more power-efficient computers that are specifically geared toward running Internet services, shared openly with other companies.

“What we found over time is that a lot of the stuff that the mass manufacturers put out wasn’t exactly in line with what we needed and what other social apps needed,” Zuckerberg said at a media event at Facebook’s Palo Alto, California headquarters on Thursday.

By sharing design specifications, he said he hoped to increase availability and demand for the specialized servers.

Dell will build servers based on those technical specifications, while Synnex Corp will act as overall vendor for the systems. The technology will power servers in the social network’s first custom-built data center, in Prineville, Oregon. Until now, Facebook has leased data centers for its infrastructure.

With more than 500 million users, Facebook is the world’s No. 1 Internet social network and is increasingly challenging established Web companies like Google Inc and Yahoo Inc as a top destination for Web surfers and a compelling advertising channel for marketers.

The technical infrastructure that powers websites such as Facebook, on which more than 30 billion photos, videos and other types of content are shared by users every month, play a key role in a service’s performance.

According to Facebook, the new servers will be 38 percent more energy efficient and cost 24 percent less than off-the-shelf products used to power its service. AGENCIES

Zulqarnain is still waiting for Political Asylum in England

The former wicket keeper of Pakistan cricket team Zulqarnain Haider is still waiting for the political asylum in United Kingdom. Retired Wicket keeper batsman was reportedly missing on 8th of November and was not arrived with the team at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium for the deciding ODI against South Africa. After this these news were came in the media that Zulqarnain is immediately disappeared.

Zulqarnain landed in London late Monday night. He claimed that he had received death threats after scoring the winning runs in the last one-day international match he played he posted a message the on a social networking website “Facebook” saying that he was leaving Pakistan cricket because he had received a threat message from one man to lose the last game. He also phoned his brother and a media journalist, alleging he received a threat after close-fought match against the South African side.

After coming in London he talked to a private Pakistani electronic media channel and announced the decision of his retirement from international cricket. He said that

“I have decided it is best for me to retire from international cricket since my family and I are constantly getting threats, it is best for me to step down because I can’t play in these circumstances. But I would like to continue to play domestic cricket”.

An official of Pakistan Cricket Board told that Zulqarnain retrieved his passport from team management, saying he needed it to buy a mobile phone SIM card. The PCB announced an immediate inquiry and a fact finding committee to follow Zulqarnain’s case. The information shared with the PCB fact finding committee by the local authorities indicates that Zulqarnain has left the UAE for England, the PCB said in a statement. “The PCB continues to monitor all of this situation and is in contact with concerned authorities in this regard.”

Zulqarnain’s coming to London and leaving the team in such mysterious way was on the heels of September’s corruption scandal when three Pakistani players became embroiled in match-fixing allegations. Mohammed Asif, Mohammed Amir and the captain Sulman Butt are under suspension after being accused of accepting money via a middleman “Mazhar Majeed” to bowl no-balls at specific points and after specific known intervals in the fourth test match between Pakistan and England which was played in September.The wicketkeeper was questioned by officers of Scotland Yard and ICC Anti-Corruption unit in London.

On 4th of December former cricketer posted another message on Facebook that he would disclose all the secrets pertaining to spot-fixing within two days. In this message he again told about the threat calls and letters he and his family is receiving. But still nothing is disclosed by him. He has changed his lawyer and said that he did not want to talk about cricket matters until his Political Asylum application decision did not came.

Facebooks CEO Zuckerberg named Time Person of the Year 2010

Adding one more feather to the largest social network in the cyber world, Time has selected the founder and CEO of Facebook- Mark Zuckerberg -as its Person of the Year 2010.

Considering his attempts to build up and run the biggest social networking site in the world, which made ground breaking changes to the way people communicate and interact, Time has found him as the most befitting personality for the award this year.

Though, the announcement comes at a point when there are apprehensions about the way Facebook proliferates in the cyber world and the way it handles the private data added to its databases every day, Zuckerberg getting this most coveted honor will help Facebook have some real party time. Time has found that the web service Zuckerberg started while he was just 19, from his Harvard dorm, almost seven years ago, has now stitched together a twelfth of the humanity. If Facebook was a country it would have been third with the population just behind China and India. Responding to the announcement, Zuckerberg said that the award is a real honor and recognition not only for him but also for the efforts of his little team.

In the run to be the Person of the Year 2010, Zuckerberg overtook the Tea Party, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange and the Chilean miners. Well, good day social networking.

Liz Hurley confirms separation, Warne ”affair” revealed

LONDON: Liz Hurley and her husband have separated, the British actress announced, as a newspaper reported she has been having an affair with Australia cricket great Shane Warne.

“Not a great day,” Hurley told her followers on social networking site Twitter. “For the record, my husband Arun and I separated a few months ago.

“Our close family and friends were aware of this.”

Hurley, 45, who has an eight-year-old son, Damian, married Indian businessman Arun Nayar three years ago.

Britain”s News of the World tabloid reported Sunday that Hurley had spent two nights with Warne, 41, in his London hotel suite last week.

She had been flirting with him for months via Twitter, it said in an article accompanied by photographs of Warne and Hurley embracing.

Divorced former leg-spin bowler Warne arrived in Britain on Wednesday to shoot interviews for his new television show, Warnie, the newspaper said.

He has been commentating on the ongoing Ashes series for Australia”s Channel Nine television network.

Previous affairs cost Warne not only his marriage but the vice-captaincy of the Australia Test side in 2000 and the opportunity to become his country’s one-day captain two years later.

In 2005 his behaviour saw him sacked from a previous contract with Nine.

The continuing controversy surrounding his private life could well put paid to whatever slim chance there was of a comeback for Warne, who retired from Test cricket in 2007.

A number of former Test players have called for him to return to bolster an Australia side now 1-0 down in the Ashes series.

Hurley and Nayar married in a civil ceremony at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, south-west England in 2007 and held a blessing and party at the castle the following night.

They then had traditional Indian wedding celebrations at the Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur.

Hurley and actor Hugh Grant were one of Britain”s leading celebrity couples in the 1990s before they split after his arrest in 1995 for consorting with a Hollywood prostitute.

Also a model, Hurley was well-known for her daring choice of clothes at various red-carpet events and in 1994 wore a Versace dress held together by safety pins.

Anurag Kashyap accuses Big B of postponing release of Chittagong

Anurag Kashyap is known to speak from his heart and doesn’t believe in mincing words. This time Anurag has gone ahead and taken pot-shots at none other than Amitabh Bachchan. Apparently, Anurag is upset as he feels that Big B used his clout to postpone the release of the film Chittagong (which is also based on the 1930 Chittagong uprising just like the Abhishek Bachchan starrer Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey)

While Khelein Hum Jee Jan Sey (KHJJS) is a big budget film made by a veteran director like Ashutosh Gowariker and stars bigwigs such as Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone, Chittagong is a relatively smaller film directed by Sonali Bose and stars Manoj Bajpayee in the lead.

Both Chittagong and KHJJS were to release last Friday (Dec 3) but finally only KHJJS released and Chittagong got postponed. Anurag Kashyap may not be directly involved with the film but he still smelt something fishy in this sudden act and expressed his rant on a social networking site. The maverick filmmaker said, “See Chittagong, a far superior film made on the same subject as Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey.. At 1/8 th the cost, far superior actors and immense passion… Producers decided to sit on it, because of a phone call from someone, because that someone was trying desperately to save his son’s career… welcome to Bollywood, where whose son you are outshines all the hard work and passion and potential and talent. KHJJS came and went, now what?”

The comment has certainly not gone down too well with Big B who has called the accusation as incorrect and baseless. While Big B refuses to comment further on this issue, this certainly is something he won’t forget in a long time to come.

UN predicts Internet to hit 2B users by end of 2010

Nearly one-third of the world’s population will be online by the end of the year, according to a United Nations report.
The number of people using the Internet around the world doubled in the past five years and should surpass 2 billion users by the end of this year, noted a report from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency focused on information and communications technology issues.
This is quite a milestone for the Net, said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. To put it in context, it’s estimated that there are almost 7 billion humans on Earth today. To think that almost a third of them have access to the Net is remarkable. It becomes an astounding thought when you consider that we’ve come from essentially zero Internet users 20 years ago to where we are today.
The new numbers also put Facebook’s online dominance into perspective. The social networking site announced in July that it had reached half a billion users. Based on the UN’s numbers, that means about a quarter of everyone online is using Facebook. The ITU report also noted that UN analysts expect that there will be 226 million new Internet users just this year, and that 162 million of them will be from developing countries. While poorer countries are making great strides, Internet access in developed countries still is way ahead.The ITU reported that 71% of the population in developed countries will be online by the end of this year, compared with 21% of the population in developing countries.
The numbers are similar when it comes to having Internet access at home. In developed countries, 65% of people have access to the Internet in their homes, but in developing countries that number drops to 13.5%. And the ITU also noted that while many people still don’t have access to high-speed Internet, there’s a growing dependence on mobile telephony. According to the U.N., more than 90% of the population worldwide has access to mobile networks.

Half of social networkers worried about privacy

NEW YORK: Half of Americans who have a profile on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are worried about their privacy, according to a new poll.

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Half of social networkers worried about privacy

Spain offers state protection to octopus after death threats

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero has jokingly offered state protection for Paul, the psychic octopus, who has received death threats from German fans over his World Cup predictions.

Paul, from Aquarium Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, had predicted the outcome of all six of Germany’s matches, including the 1-0 semi-final loss to Spain, by choosing to eat food from boxes adorned with the flags of Germany and its rivals.

Now Spain’s politicians are worried that some German fans may take their “revenge” on the octopus for their team’s exit.

“I am concerned for the octopus. I am thinking of sending him a protective team,” local media quoted Zapatero, as saying.

Spanish Environment and Fisheries Minister, Elena Espinosa, suggested a moratorium on going after Paul.

The threat to Paul’s life has escalated after some sections of the German fans were spotted singing anti-octopus songs.

According to a local newspaper, there have been “a host of comments on social networking web sites suggesting Paul should be fried, barbecued or turned into a seafood salad or paella”.

“Others wanted to throw him into the shark tank,” the paper added.

Major predictions, which came true in this World Cup, have been in the Germany-England Round of 16 clash and Germany-Argentina quarterfinal game. Paul had chosen Germany’s flag on both the occasions.

If the eight-limbed oracle survives the threats, fans would be thinking twice about dismissing his advice in future.

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