Save the Sea Monkeys!

I finished the readings from last week and they were interesting indeed. The first part was how with all of the new social technologies, it is easier to inform others of causes at a faster and cheaper cost. Here is how it would go:
Your cause: Save the Sea Monkeys- this may be a stretch but hey it is my blog!
The Old Way
You discover that sea monkeys are severely endangered by reading articles in newspapers and magazines. You want to get involved and decide to create your own group to educate the public about how they can save these precious creatures. You mail out some letters to friends and walk around with a clipboard asking people to join your cause. You may schedule some meetings with your members and then chain yourself to a tree to get attention, keep in mind this can get you arrested!
This takes time to organize and money to mail out information and for other supplies. Also, it will take time for your group to grow through this method.

The New Way
You read an article online about the dangers to the sea monkey population and are intrigued. You surf the web looking for additional information and become distraught at the plight of the sea monkey. You get on facebook and create a page that explains the Sea Monkey disaster to anyone that will listen and send it to your 425 facebook friends. Many of them become interested and join your page and send it to their friends. You also tweet incessantly about it and many of your followers retweet the messages and so on. Before you know it you have thousands that are interested in saving sea monkeys and through the internet you look at ways to help them as well as continuing to educated the public at large. This costs very little, just a internet connection and a computer and the passage rate of information is as quick as you can get it out.

I think that using social technology to get help educate people about causes or stolen cell phones can be a powerful too. The only thing that worries me is that the information is subjective, it comes from one perspective and you don't see the other side of the coin. Life today is crazy and many people may read about your cause or stolen property and not have the time to investigate the details you chose to leave out to make yourself or your cause look good. Balance may get lost. It will be interesting to see where technology and social networking will lead us in the years to come.

By the way the sea monkey population is still severely endangered!