Module 02.Spreadable media

Editor's Notes

• #20: Passenger on ferry Janis Krums clicked a snapshot with his iPhone of US Airways Flight 1549 partially submerged in the Hudson River and tweets rescue of passengers in Hudson River after plane crash.
• #21: Same pic appeared on front pages of major dailies.
• #22: Twitter comes into its own for breaking news. When the terrorists attacked Mumbai Nov 26, 2008 the most interesting links and accounts were found on Twitter and CNN IBN had a live feed on the net.
• #23: More than 960 tweets a minute were streaming in on Twitter. Some were useful pointing to possible vehicle used by suspects and where to donate for blood.
• #24: A landslide in Bukit Antarabangsa, Kuala Lumpur on Dec 6, 2008 was tweeted about by news orgs and individuals who were there.
• #27: Botanicalls allows plant to send tweets to owner when it is running low on moisture. US$99.99 for the kit.
• #30: Zappos is a company that believes in a good customer experience and that repeat customers are the key to success.
• #31: Zappos has put culture first by launching twitter.zappos, com, a site that pulls in live feeds of all their employees who are on Twitter and of anyone who mentions Zappos on Twitter. It’s a constantly evolving conversation, a patchwork that represents their culture, but it’s also a completely transparent way to show how they are communicating with their customers - not just a company providing a service, but human to human conversation. Within a month of starting his Twitter account, the CEO has been sharing what he is up to personally and professionally and providing behind the scenes information about working at Zappos. It’s about customer service, it’s brand building, it’s reputation management, it’s CRM. But what does that do for the bottomline?
• #32: Zappos customers become evangelists of the brand.
• #33: I wrote Tony Hsieh an email after he said he would send anyone the Zappos Culture Book, then tweeted about it and received immediate reply from @Zappos_Service and three days later the UPS guy showed up outside my house in Malaysia. It arrived in 72 hours all the way from Vegas. Cool.
• #44: IRAN: This is Neda Agha-Soltan. She was 26, a university student in student in Teheran studying philosophy and music and was planning to learn to play the piano. She'd already ordered the piano. On June 20, 2009, at around 6:30 p.m, Neda was stuck in a traffic jam for more than an hour inside a Peugeot 206 -- a subcompact with a poorly working air conditioner. She and her music teacher decided to get out of the car for some fresh air. The two were near where protesters were marching ande chanting. Suddenly, Neda is on the ground -- felled by a single gunshot wound to the chest. Camera phone footage show men kneeling beside her trying to help. But it is too late. Neda's eyes rolls back, her body falls limp and blood streams from her mouth and nose. The teacher is heard calling out. "Neda, do not be afraid, do not be afraid,“ She died on the way to hospital. Later, a witness said her last words were: “I am burning, I am burning!” Neda neither supported Mousavi nor Ahmadinejab, the two candidates in the elections.Here is the video. Warning to weak-hearted some the scenes are graphic and explicit.
• #45: Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbdEf0QRsLM
• #46: Neda became the symbol of injustice in Iran. Protesters took the streets with the graphic images of her bloodied face. By marching they risked arrest, and possibly a bullet themselves.The online community used Neda icons and badges on blogs and personal sites and replaced avatars with Free Iran buttons in sympathy.
• #49: 40 th day after her death, a memorial march on the streets of Paris.
• #50: The video struck a cord with sympathisers around the world. President Obama himself described it as “heartbreaking.” To date it has racked over 4.6 million views from various copies on YouTube and other sites. The trending topic using hashtags on Twitter continues to be used until today on any news coming out of Iran. I tell you this story without ever having stepped in Iran. But based on Neda's story and the 17 others who were killed in protests on the streets of Teheran, there is definitely an underlying and seething unhappiness of blatant injustices in Iran. These people were young, urban, self-motivated and self-organising as far as we can tell. There is no backing from any invested party. They marched because they were angry and unhappy. I don't even think Mousavi or Ahmadinejab knew what was going on. The bottomline: the demonstrators were armed with only their phones and the power social media skills.