Tag: Twitter

Facebook, the child (and father) of a revolution

On By namedropperIn Uncategorized1 Comment

It seems that Facebook is fast becoming the universally recognized brand for political expression and freedom.

So much so that, according to TechCrunch, an Egyptian man has named his first born daughter “Facebook” in tribute to the role the service played in organizing the protests in Tahrir Square and beyond.

While the baby girl might just have easily been called YouTube, Twitter or Google, it is Facebook that has become the peoples’ medium in Egypt.

Of the 79 million citizens in Egypt (September 2010 estimate), 5 million are on Facebook. The company itself has reported an increase in Egyptian users on its website, with 32,000 Facebook groups and 14,000 pages created in the two weeks after January 25 (the first day of revolutions).

Not to be outdone the Egyptian army, which is currently running the country after President Mubarak was ousted, launched a Facebook page of its own a few days ago to boost its image.

The Egyptian military wants to be friends
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The Twitter Effect

On By namedropperIn Uncategorized1 Comment

What’s in a name? If it happens to be Twitter, the answer is roughly $1.1 billion.

In just four years, Twitter has gone from birdsong to the most used word in the English language, according to Global Language Monitor data for 2009. (“Obama” was a close second.)

Twitter spokesman Matt Graves explains that his company’s insipidly brilliant name was “the result of a brainstorm between a small group of employees at Odeo, the San Francisco podcasting startup where Twitter initially began as a side project. They came up with possible names, including ‘Jitter’ and ‘Twitter,’ and put them in a hat,” Graves says. Twitter won.

Now the race is on to coin the next weirdly memorable company name, says BusinessWeek. Birds of a feather flock together.