Techization

Analysis showing number of hourly tweets using #IranElection hashtag 

Tweets per hour including the word ‘Iran’

Note the trend dips and peaks between the mention of ‘Iran’ on Twitter and the use of the #IranElection hashtag to consolidate the onversation over the last two days.

The use of the word ‘Iran’ per-day is radpily falling, will it finally be knocked down off the #1 trending position soon?

These numbers are simply mind numbing and showcase the power of social media and the Internet.  (01:02 p.m. CDT  6/18/09: UPDATED)

With all the violence and government censorship taking place in Iran, international journalists from the United States and elsewhere are having lots of trouble.  Iran doesn’t want any information getting to the outside world about the extent of the revolution and violence taking place. 

“Following a massive opposition rally Monday, authorities restricted journalists — including Iranians working for foreign media — from reporting on the streets. They could effectively only work from their offices, conducting telephone interviews and monitoring official sources such as state TV.” – Associated Free Press

Some journalists having been forced to leave because the Iranian government would not renew their Visa which they received to cover the election. 

Iran has also begun censoring communication online as well.  They are throttling bandwidth within their country and blocking popular communication platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube to name a few.   All of these efforts by Iran to censor information have been rather futile.  Social media and tech savvy geeks in Iran and around the world have shown that trying to completely shut down communication is tough to do.  The only way to really crush communication would be to pull the plug on critical network infrastructure and backbones, however that would leave government entities out of luck as well.  Corporate media who cannot have large six-figure cameras on the street have turned to citizen journalist tools to tell the story from the front lines. 

I watched a reporter on CNN who was walking near a rally in which Iranians were being beaten record his story on a cell phone while walking down the street, he nervously looked around while talking knowing at any time they could become a target of Iranian police.  Truthfully, this could have been anyone using a simple cell phone to record a video describing what they were witnessing.  The only difference being this reporter had the backing of a major news network.  The Iranian election has shown that you don’t need that support to get your message out to thousands.

Pictures (like this) spread on TwitPic(a website for sharing photos on Twitter) of a rally with an estimated 100,000 protesters collected over 60,000 views in less than 24 hours.  This YouTube video shows unarmed Iranian’s being shot at by Basiji forces in the streets of Tehran. These are the kind of images Iran wants to keep under wraps as they try and down play the size of protests.   Iran has now stated as of Wednesday evening that those who engage in ‘incitement’ by using Twitter and other blocked websites to communicate to other countries could face execution.  Yes, I said execution.

Iran will continue to try and keep things up wraps, but tech geeks world wide who are aiding and embedding Iranian protesters in online ‘bunkers’ by offering proxies and encrypted VPN’s will continue to prevail.  The real question is where is all this heading?  #IranElection continues to stay atop Twitter trends though trends showing it may be leveling off with 27,000 tweets using the #IranElection hashtag on June 15th, 2009 and just 19,000 tweets on June 17th.

Micro-bloggers and Tweeters worldwide began criticizing CNN for not covering the Tehran Protests.  CNN even had the story in the middle of their ‘Top Stories’ section, no where near the virtual headline like BBC News did.  This situation leaves many questions, including why CNN felt this massive story was unimportant.  I’m not about to start any conspiracy theories but I’ll be interested reading blogs in the coming days about the speculation.  But this debacle shows a very interesting digital perspective.  See this graphic of top news sites designed by Michael Pinto.

The #cnnfail hashtag started and really gained some steam as it was trending for hours over the weekend.  However, that momentum has fallen over the last 24 hours as CNN has responded to their viewers anger by devoting day-long coverage to the ‘breaking news’.

Hashtag decline as CNN responds to viewer anger

Viewers have grown to have expectations for CNN when it comes to breaking news.  I feel if this would have happened with Fox News or any other news outlet,  no one really would have cared all that much.  This bodes well for CNN and their campaign to brand themselves as a leader in breaking news and being an early adopter with new technologies.  However, this backfired on them this weekend.  When CNN didn’t deliver on expectations as they drowned the Iran protest story with Letterman vs. Palin, their loyal viewers got their news from different unfiltered sources online like Twitter itself and lashed out at the media giant for their lack of coverage.   Iran has blocked access to social networking sites, text messaging and even jamming satellite signals for T.V. reporters.  Tech savvy students have found ways around the block Internet sites and have managed to leak out information from the front lines.  This website shows graphic photos of students who were under attack at Tehran University.  Exactly the kind of information the Iranian government wants censored from the global community.

Twitter can not only serve as a platform to inform the entire world about the Tehran University attacks, it can also swing corporate media giants to pay attention.

Jackson Fall with Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv

I’m always eying up the tech talent online.  Who is an up-and-coming blogger or podcaster with an interesting perspective on tech.  One young man caught my eye this weekend.  His name is Jackson Fall (@iphreak) and he is the chief geek over at LivingDigitally.tv.  The kicker is, this kid is only thirteen years old!  After visiting his sites, you’ll see he is light years ahead of public relations executives three times his age.  He is a competent web designer, blogger and podcaster!

Jackson understands social media and delivering his message online.  He is an example of the future of social media specialists.  He is able to wrap his brain around something at thirteen that many adult executives can’t even begin to understand and utilize.  Jackson Fall is someone to keep your eye on over the next decade, he’s going places!  Maybe I’ll get him on Techization.com to talk about how he became so interested in technology!  Stay tuned!