YouTube is inescapable, dictators have attempting to restrict access by monitoring and blocking the internet and arresting those who post antigovernment messages. These attempts have largely been unsuccessful in stopping the onslaught of YouTube journalism. In the same way that embarrassments happening on a night out are inevitably destined for YouTube, so too are the political embarrassments from around the world.

Everyone’s a photographer

The simple fact is that cameras are now everywhere. Where there are people, there are cameras. Approximately a third of the world’s population has a mobile phone and most of those come with cameras, poised ready to catch people at their best and worst then quickly tell the world about it.

Government crackdowns have instigated cyber wars in countries such as Egypt and Iran. Mostly, the civilians are winning the “geek off” that is taking place, using untraceable proxy servers to get their message out and avoiding capture.

Barack Obama has certainly reaped the benefits of this aspect of social media, not only during the election campaign, but also after he became president. In January 2011 he appeared on the latest offering which is YouTube World View, where the public post questions to be answered by the politician in question. Obama gave a lengthy 40 min video response and was largely appreciated according to the current stats -1,640 likes; 709 dislikes.

David Cameron followed suit in February although this ploy was not quite as successful for the British prime minister. He received 896 likes and a staggering 2,203 dislikes for his 25 minute video.

One senator who certainly used Twitter.com to his advantage is now known as President Barack Obama. In between the 3rd and 4th of November 2008, the day of his election, he reportedly gained an extra 2,865 new followers on Twitter.

Other politicians like Gia Raimondo, Treasurer of Rhode Island give the public access to information via www.Twitter.com. She regularly updates her followers with financial news and the current state budget, giving a more transparent and democratic feel to the way the state is governed.

The Double-Edged Sword

Twitter has also been the effective tool of those working against the government. The most prolific involvement in civil uprisings was during the protests in Egypt that saw the resignation of Mubarak. Even though the country had its internet completely shut down, its people could still send messages via Twitter. Social media was a phenomenally huge factor in the Egyptian revolt and vitally important to the protestors, 85,000 of which had previously used Facebook to organize a national antigovernment protest.

After their internet was shut down Google engineers scratched their chins, trying to come up with an idea to get through to the isolated citizens of Egypt. They accomplished this task in just one weekend, with help from a small team of Twitter engineers and a company called SayNow, the name of which being a big clue.

They developed the idea of speak-to-tweet which provides 3 international phone numbers that anyone can call and leave a voice message on. Their messages can be heard at www.twitter.com/speak2tweet

LinkedIn was recently blocked in China where there are strict controls over what citizens can view online. It seems China have increased the level of filtering in response to the wave of uprisings across the Middle East.

Conclusion

Governments overlook the importance of social medial at their peril. Failure to act responsibly, in general and when specifically dealing with social networks and their access, can lead to the ultimate downfall of a regime. Social networks have become the latest popular channels for dissent, replacing on-the-ground leaders and word of mouth. Social media reaches a huge percentage of the national population and the international community, its messages can gain support from tens of thousands of people in a matter of days.

For this reason it would be unwise for any government to overlook the impact of social media. Yet, they need to tread delicately. Those regimes that have been too heavy handed in terms of social network access have ultimately been beaten by the techno-geeks and eventually overthrown. This somehow, is unsurprising. After all, the government are playing on their turf now.

Some would claim that these protests would not even be possible without social media instruments such as Facebook. There's a photograph from Tunisia at bbc.co.uk/radio1 which shows a wall graffitied with the words "Thankyou Facebook". During the protests journalists and reporters were prevented from covering any scenes of uprising. Facebook wasn't.

Sssh! Don't tell anyone

The main disadvantage with your garden variety Facebook revolution day is that everybody can see it. Not only do would-be protestors take an interest in their plans for civil revolt, the governments are quite keen as well. It is especially problematic when announcing exact dates and times along with telling the general public exactly where the riot (or civil movement) is going to take place. Obviously any aspiring government Columbo worth half his salt could work out where to put all the policemen with the guns and batons. Announcing a revolution day on Facebook is a bit like announcing a party on Facebook – it could quickly turn into an organized free-for-all.

At least if they tell the police and the government where the revolt is happening it means they don't need to bother tapping their phones, which saves them some money.

Ola Rosling, from Google gave an interesting presentation in Washington. He shows a new way of viewing data they have been developing which is like a cross between a pie chart, a bar graph and a video, an innovation for public data.

Rosla first shows a graph axis which compares the world's countries on different scales, showing each country as a big or small bubble. Rosling calls this a "socio- economic world map".
His first example is a graph showing wealth vs health of all the countries. The bottom axis is GDP per capita and the Y-axis is life expectancy.

The graph it makes it clear that there is no simple rich and poor countries but a linear scale of wealth. America is near the top end of wealth, although countries with lower wealth such as Japan have higher life expectancies, or better health. Rosling zooms out to show different scales, when compared with all the countries in the world, America is actually higher up the "healthy scale" than would be expected, but the data clearly shows that wealth does not necessarily equal health.

Static image is lying

"However, a static image is lying because the world is changing," says Ola Rosling. He pulls the graph back 200 years then plays it through like a video, showing life expectancy and the world's wealth burst out as the bubbles rise up and across.

It certainly makes for interesting viewing and it is clear that this sort of powerful data combined with the uniquely visual approach could certainly help governments to keep track of things. Gap Minder Visualisations make complex data understandable, it is obvious what is happening, even though the viewer is looking at several different scale factors.

home page http://www.gov2summit.com/gov2010
Ola Rosling video:

http://communityindicators.blogspot.com/2009/09/ola-rosling-at-gov-20-summit

The benefit of this is a better and more truthful standard of democracy. Everyone, at some point, has had a rant about what they would do if they were president.

Now the people finally have a say, and their voices can be heard by someone more influential than their drinking buddy or squash partner. Due mostly to the internet, current affairs is no longer a playing field for the educated elite or powerfully rich only. The bar has been effectively lowered, allowing access to these issues from all walks of life.

eGovernment transparency

These changes could improve government transparency and effectiveness. For example, the use of social networking sites to communicate with citizens is a way of meeting people on their own turf, so to speak. In doing so, the government can encourage younger people, who are traditionally less interested in politics to join the debate and get involved.

An example of this would be the State of Rhode Island Treasurer Gina Raimondo, who regularly uses Twitter to update those who follow her with news about the state cash flow and financial issues.

This type of thing certainly increases government transparency but it also works the other way. The government now collects huge masses of data on its people through electronic means. Through internet monitoring, CCTV coverage, license plate readers etc the government steadily increases the vast bank of information it holds on all citizens, thus making it more powerful.

The question is, can we tell them too much? The idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful government for some reason conjures up images of a Big Brother state, one perhaps more totalitarian than Utopian.

These days, if someone is not on Facebook, then it is usually seen as something of an oddity, a quirky personality trait. A virtual business community will never be as popular, but it is important to look at the key factors which helped make Facebook a success.

Most members will log on as their first port of call on the internet because the site keeps them engaged (doing stuff) and it has mobile integration and email notifications to pull the users back when they are away. It also provides rewards in the behavioural sense. When users check their notification bar, they receive an update in acceptance within the community, or positive reinforcement as they find out who liked their comment, link or video.
To replicate these sorts of luring factors will enhance any virtual community's appeal and sustainability.

Is it all good?

There are a few problems with social networking from both a business and evolutionary point of view.
There is clear evidence in our daily lives of the infringement of social networking (or "antisocial networking" as it has been referred to by those of a cynical persuasion).

The increasingly more frequent necessity to access Facebook and Twitter is a distraction that is proving both costly and time consuming to businesses. Their employees are constantly checking their iPhones and computers to read the latest Facebook/Twitter message when really they should be working/serving customers/putting out fires.
More importantly, the world becomes more and more robotic as people cut off from real world connections and begin to rely solely on a virtual stimulus, but surely the virtual community cannot completely replace the real life interaction of people?

Users can actually sell practically any item through websites such as eBay with no upfront cost at all, provided the item pricing is sufficiently low (eg £1 per listing). Although this may seem like a low figure, due to the auction format of eBay, the final sale price can increase dramatically if there is sufficient interest in the item and multiple bidders enter into what is known as a "bidding war". Add to that the postage charge, chosen by the seller, and it is certainly viable for an individual or would-be entrepreneur to make significant profits whilst paying no upfront capitol.

For more expensive items, eBay would charge a listing fee. For example, if the starting price was listed at £50, eBay would charge the seller a small fee (£1) to put the item up for auction. They also take a cut if the item sells; this is referred to as the Final Value Fee. eBay would normally take 10% of the final selling price, not including postage fees. Money transfer companies like PayPal will also take a small portion of the incoming amount if the payment is made through them. However, this commission is relatively small and more or less negligible.

Paid competition

One of the main disadvantages for selling large amounts of goods through third party marketplaces is the competition from the parent site. For this reason, companies like Macy’s, Buy.com and Gap have pulled their items out of Amazon Marketplace. The problem exists where the third party merchants sell the same items as Amazon.com, this means that the third party vendor is in direct competition with Amazon, providing them with valuable market information and paying them for the privilege.

This means that customers can now transfer funds whilst on the move. It is even possible for users to receive updates on stock prices and perform stock trading when they are actually stuck in a traffic jam. As long as their phone can receive a signal, banking can be done from any location, meaning business can continue without the physical presence of a customer or bank employee.

The trouble with mobile banking

Mobile banking is not completely free from limitation. One such problem that banks are faced with is the difference between the mobile phones themselves. Mobiles have different operating systems and capabilities. Some phones will support Java, others will be WAP enabled, more basic phones will be SMS only. Creating a system that is reliable and works across all platforms is certainly a challenge for the companies involved.

Possibly the main issue is the security of the mobile banking system. The system has to ensure that if the mobile phone is stolen, the thief cannot easily access the phone user’s details. The main way of stopping this is through user ID and password combinations.

However, this is not the only way that the data can become compromised. When a mobile banking customer taps the information into his or her phone and presses “send”, this information is transmitted to the bank wirelessly. The confidential data is effectively floating through the air and if not properly encrypted, or if the encryption is decoded somehow, then hackers can more or less pluck this information straight from the sky it is travelling through and get access to the customer’s funds.

One advantage of eCommerce, from the customer’s point of view, is that it effectively cuts out the middleman in the transaction. Whereas traditionally, the supply route goes manufacturer-wholesaler-retailer-customer, with e-Commerce the retailer can be cut out of the equation. This means there is more market transparency as the customer can be told through digital platforms what the wholesale price is, then buy the product without going through a middleman, so to speak.

ECommerce bridges the gap

With eCommerce there is also more encouragement for the individual or small business to sell goods at an affordable rate. Before the internet became widespread a person wanting to setup a shop would have to pay for the premises and expensive ground rent in order to run a viable sales business. Nowadays, an individual with no previous business experience can sell goods through the internet at a low cost. There are template systems which allow users to make a simple sales website with relatively small price tags (eg £20 per month). Third party marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon allow users to sell products through their site with little or no upfront costs to be paid.

With the growth of eCommerce, the gap between individuals and professional sales businesses has been bridged, allowing a greater number of people to join the market who would not normally have the opportunity to do so.