T4

R.AGE

STARTWO, WEDNESDAY 23 DECEMBER 2009

Power to you

By NIKI CHEONG

ON SUNDAY, I was invited to give a talk at a local university

college on social media. They had given me a topic for my
presentation: The Power of Social Media.
When I look at a title like that, I tend to think about social
medias influence and how it is able to mobilise and
bring people together for a common cause. Just last
week, there were a few good examples. Lets check
a few out.

Twitter snow fight!

The cop in question has been placed on desk

duty pending an investigation.

Raging to number one

niki@thestar.com.my

No, were not talking about Facebooklike pillow and food fights. On Saturday, in
Washington DC, hundreds of people in their
20s and 30s decided to don their warm
clothes and go, er, play in the cold.
The call to get together for the fight
was made via an announcement on a web
site and via Twitter. The Washington Post
reports that the restless indulgence was
the brainchild of 25-year-old Yousef Ali,
who came up with the idea after being
inspired by a friends Facebook status.
The report stated that even the DC
Department of Transportation got in on the
frenzy, twittering: SNOW UPDATE as
advertised, there is a large snowball battle at
14th and U. Keep it safe.
Of course, things turned for the worse
when the cops arrived. A maroon Hummer
driven by a plain-clothed policeman arrived
and many of those present started pelting
the car with snowballs.
Witness claimed that the cop pulled out
his gun after he got pelted by snowballs,
and this has caused a furore. The police originally denied that the gun was taken out of
its holster but pictures and videos which
have made their rounds on Twitter,
Facebook and blogs show otherwise.

For four years now, the Christmas #1 spot

on the UK singles chart has been dominated
by participants of X Factor, Simon Cowells
reality talent show. Well, obviously this didnt
sit well with fans of popular rock band Rage
Against The Machine because they declared
war - and took it virtual.
A Facebook page, titled RAGE AGAINST THE
MACHINE FOR CHRISTMAS NO.1 appeared on
the social media site, attracting almost 1mil
fans who wanted to see bands latest single
Killing In The Name, get the top spot.
On Sunday night, the campaign proved
successful; the song sold 500,000 copies while X
Factor winner Joe McElderry sold 450,000 copies.
This is a big win for social media and for RATM;
this is the bands first ever UK number one.

Coin collection
Well, social media cant take all the credit for this
one but observers say that it played a pretty huge
part.

In Indonesia, Prita
Mulyasari found
herself being sued for
defamation after
complaining about a
hospital that had
wrongly diagnosed her
to her friends via email.
Obviously, citizens of
Indonesia were
appalled to discover
that she had to pay
204mil Rupiah (US$21,000) fine.
A campaign, dubbed Koin Untuk Prita, was put in action,
which included the creation of a Facebook group that currently has over 66,000 members to collect loose change to help
Priya pay her fine.
The response was enourmous, and a concert featuring such
high-profile artists like Nidji (who even composed a song for
her) was held. According to The Jakarta Post, Prita went on
stage to receive the donations. It amounted to a whopping
825million Rupiah, which is well over US$86,000!
* Want the links to the video and Facebook pages mentioned in the article? Check out What The Tweet online at
http://blog.rage.com.my for them!