CRUSH: Rick and Roll
CRUSH is a fast and fun weekly round-up of social media news - Join us on Facebook to keep up with all the latest. What was this week's theme among your favorite social networking sites? Change. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are all rolling out a handful of new features. Including Twitter's addition of "most popular tweets" to its search capability, a new interactive layout for YouTube, and the introduction of language alterations and community pages from Facebook.
Facebook was especially busy, as it also acquired "Divvyshot", a program that will allow users to tag photos by event. You can expect to see this application in the upcoming months. Music artist John Forte has already gotten a head start on how this might work, pausing mid-set during his latest tour stop in Boston to snap a photo for his morning Twitter feed.
More politicians are beginning to find audiences via social media. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is reaching out to his constituents on Facebook. He follows New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, who did a live stream chat courtesy of the Live Free of Die Alliance a few months ago.
But beware, the power of social media is a double-edged sword. Just ask the RNC, as the release of controversial financial records and activities have been blasted to the public by an army of bloggers, as well as a video mashup of RNC Chairman Michael Steele's speeches to Fat Joe's music video "Make It Rain".
On a lighter note, April Fool's Day did not go by unnoticed. Here's a list of Mashable's favorite pranks from this year.
And of course, we couldn't resist pulling a prank of our own, which brings us to our CRUSH of the Week. Haven't heard of a Rick Roll? Let us introduce you...
Last Call to Help End Relationship Violence
If ending relationship violence were as easy as downloading a song, would you do it? For the last two months, Macy's and Alfani have been giving away free downlaods of Ne-Yo's exclusive song "Heroes". Every time someone downloaded it, Macy's and Alfani gave $1 to the RESPECT! Campaign to end relationship violence. So far, more then $35,000 have been raised to fund projects to help parents to teach their kids non-violence.
Tomorrow is the last day of the program, so I'm blogging to invite you - yes you - to download this song now and send this link to your friends and ask them to do the same.
Right now, an argument in a relationship is turning violent.
Right now, lives are being shattered because people see each other as objects.
Right now, children are learning by example.
Get as many people to download the song as possible - Right now. Download. Post to Facebook. Post to Twitter.
CRUSH: Facebook in the Time of Syphilis
CRUSH is a fast and fun weekly round-up of social media news Can you get Syphilis from Facebook? According to a public health report in Britain, you can blame social media networks for the recent rise in disease cases by making it easier for individuals to meet up for casual sex.
While it's far-fetched to believe Facebook is responsible for STDs, it could be aiding insomniacs. If you've started counting tweets instead of sheep when you're having trouble sleeping, a new study reveals you're not alone. An increasing number of Facebook and Twitter users are checking their accounts when they wake up during the night.
The big news on Capitol Hill this week - the health care bill was passed. But, as expected, along with it came strong reactions from both the left and right. The tweeter who threatened to assassinate President Obama has been taken into custody, and his Twitter account is gone. ABC News does have screenshots of the profanity-laden tweets here. Can 140 for characters still land you 15-20? We'll find out soon. From the left corner, we have the first (of possibly many?) mash-up remix of House Minority Leader John Boehner's "No You Can't" rant with Will.i.am's "Yes, We Can" video from the '08 election cycle.
Google's newest project, which promises to install high speed fiber-optic Internet cables in at least one lucky city, has got mayors across the country going to extreme measures. It started in Kansas, where the mayor of Topeka temporarily changed the city's name to Google, Kansas. And the stunts have only gotten more adventurous, as Mayor of Duluth, Minnesota took a dip in frigid Lake Superior, while the Mayor of Sarasota Florida jumped into a tank filled with sharks.
But someone not happy to be catching the attention of Google? The British Special Air Service. It seems Google camera cars have "outed" a secret base of the SAS by marking the location on Google's maps street view, and the British military and parliament aren't happy about their cover being blown.
That brings us to our CRUSH of the Week, where we would like to take a chance to applaud Google for standing up to China.
CRUSH: Sonic the Hedgehog
Mid-March means many things: The death of Caesar, spring break, and the conclusion of SXSW. CRUSH takes the best of what happened in social media, and serves it up hot, in about 3 minutes. Among other things, we found Sonic the Hedgehog this week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b65N9NXLrbk
What was the coolest thing to come out of South by Southwest Interactive? While Twitter's "@Anywhere" shows some promise, our money is on Aardvark, the social networking tool that lets you pose a question to your networks, and finds the best person to give you an answer.
Not featured at SXSW this year, but sure to make a splash when it is: The new app from the Iphone that lets you form an instant social network with the people around you wherever you are.
In other news, Facebook ads are getting more expensive since the news came out that Facebook beat Google for the number one spot in Weekly U.S. web traffic last week.
On to politics...Healthcare has passed! And in addition to the massive email traffic that urged everyone to contact congress, Organizing for America scored in our book for being the site meant to personalize reform.
On the other hand (and on the other coast) Carly Fiorina's California senate campaign may be trying to ingratiate itself with some folks in Humboldt County, because we suspect her latest political web ads are - well - chemically induced.
Finally - Sonic the hedgehog lives, and you got to see it to believe it.
Teach Girls Media Literacy and Sexual Health Through Filmmaking
If you've been on the interweb at anypoint in the last month you have probably been asked by someone (or lots of someones) to support a project or idea in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Contest. I've seen ideas I thought were good and ideas I thought were not-so-good, but I just learned of one that is blog-worthy. I think I have little to add to what Monely Soltani and her team have written. I've included that below, but the bottom line is, they are in 16th place right now and rising. They need to get to 10th or better to get funding, so if you want to empower young women to educate themselves and their peers about reproductive health, give it a vote:
imMEDIAte Justice is a summer program that empowers young women from LA to share their experience of reproductive justice through film. With film mentors, young women write & direct films that offer a fresh take on sexual health education.
imMEDIAte Justice trains youth in media literacy and reproductive health with a gender-conscious lens. Professional filmmakers provide the mentorship, tools, & distribution teens need to share their vision with the world.
The focus for summer 2010 is to create positive sexuality education films by LGBTQ youth. We envision sexual education as an inclusive, exploratory, youth-driven process that utilizes new media as a tool to share and safely access information. Our online community, CALIBODYPOLITIX, keeps young women informed about reproductive health and justice in California with the largest network of national and local reproductive health resources for youth.
The program and retreats foster positive self-image, supportive female alliances and media literacy skills, as participants graduate through a two-tier leadership development program that increases their influence as filmmakers and leaders of the next generation of women.