The Rise of the Female Geek

Hey!  Look at me --->  :)

Hi all!  I've been away for a while, but I'm back now and I'm updating the blog.  A couple of months ago I had the pleasure of being featured in the brilliant @2morrowknight & @Paul_Steele's Huffington Post #twitterpowerhouse post about girl geekery.  I never got a chance to post it here, so I'm doing it now.  Better late than never. :)  Click here to check it out!  I'm so honored to be included in a list with an absolutely incredible group of women.  Several months later, I'm still ecstatic!!

Thanks so much Sean & Paul.  #YouRock.  ... and to all the wonderful women in the post: you're awesome!

The Bin Laden Social Media Recap

I want to thank my global village for the support.

We live in a real world straddling a growing cybersphere of social media information that parallels reality, flowing in tandem with unfolding events. Social media shadows our corporeal bodies, leaving a trail along the ‘feed and a shimmering data afterglow.  Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc have changed the way we understand the news. 

Last night I was tracking the social media response to the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.  I was continually fixated on my Twitterfeed because I was immediately connected to surreal conversations about the news via celebrities like @Alyssa_Milano, links to how the news leaked on  Twitter by @keithurbahn (Rumsfeld's former chief of staff), the Osama Bin Laden obituary (seconds after it was posted last night, via @nytjim), and photos and live streaming Twitvids of people celebrating around the country (with hashtags like #groundzero). 

The Osama news was trending on Twitter before the television stations made the announcements. A Twitter account for @GhostOsama began circulating, chirping from “hell.”  With only 8 tweets, the @GhostOsama Twitter account attracted over 16,000 people in less than 2 hours.  And Obama hadn’t even addressed the country yet.  

Even Michael Moore (@MMFlint) was retweeting @GhostOsama:

Immediately after CNN started to report the story, Mashable noted that people were checking in to a Post-Osama Bin Laden world via an “Osama Bin Laden Gonathon” on Foursquare (a moving target):

Minutes after Obama addressed the country, Google had mapped the location of Osama Bin Laden’s compound and it was tweeted out by The Atlantic (via @RTDnews):  

Soon after that, Mashable reported that Facebook group “Osama Bin Laden is Dead” went viral. 

News came from TechCrunch of a man (@ReallyVirtual) relaxing in the mountains of Pakistan who broke the story of the Bin Laden raid accidentally on Twitter, complaining of unusual helicopters that he wanted to swat because they were ruining his vacation:

The big news of the Bin Laden death announcement broke first on Twitter and was followed by a Psychology Today story about Bin Laden and the “psychology of closure.”  

And then in true social media style, the new media Bin Laden coverage became a separate story (check out this article in AdWeek or this one from cnet).  People marveled at the way the news was constantly unraveling, revealing itself on a ‘feed and going viral even before the networks could comment or the president could address the country.  And of course, Tweet Jesus (@Jesus_M_Christ) went to town on this one:

& Check out @ariannahuff's "Photo of the Day":

News suddenly has people flocking to the Internet for a world-community commiseration that eerily resembles group therapy (with celebrities, friends, and strangers all over the world).  And I'm thankful for that.  Cyber-news participation changed my experience, hitting me with multiple perspectives and bits of data, bizarre commentary, comic relief, excitement, celebration, and a whole slew of folks who were uncomfortable or confused.  Rather than being bombarded by exploitative information, I was finding myself immersed in a rich web of understanding.

Facebook and Twitter were exploding with complex emotions, becoming like a digital focus group for humanity, spreading awareness, information, cultivating perspectives from around the world – and in real-time.  This enhanced my experience and amped up my emotional response to the news because I had an immediate community of people to share it with.  The web brought the global village together to discuss the death of Osama Bin Laden.  It’s still ringing in my ears, echoing like a surreal mashup of the Wizard of Oz, visions of the almost-viral hashtag #DingDongTheWitchIsDead, dancing through my consciousness and keeping me enthralled.  I'm still not even sure how I feel about the whole thing, but I'm thankful to my global community for the easily accessible understanding and perspective.

*More great articles:

"Twitter Doesn't Supplant Other Media, It Amplifies It" (TechCrunch)

"How The Attack on Osama Bin Laden Was Live-Tweeted" (FastCompany)

"The 7 Stages of the News in a Twitter and Facebook Era" (GigaOm)