AP, CNN, and the Times of London pick up on Israel and the social media war front.
A colleague far more Web 2.0 savvy than I wondered: why is this even a story? After all, this is the first day of 2009 and many of us take for granted the interactive tools available on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.
I'm fascinated by Israel's social media outreach, and even if I weren't, there's no denying it's a legitimate news story. Here are a few important reasons why:
1. Nobody's ever done a citizens' press conference on Twitter before.
2. It used to take hours, even days, for Israel to declassify and release the kind of footage it's now uploading to the IDF channel on YouTube as if part of a pre-established protocol. In 2006. the inavailability of these kinds of videos allowed Hezbollah and its apologists to fill the news with wild claims of disproportionate response and exaggerated collateral damage.
3. Israel's San Francisco consulate is organizing a conference call for bloggers (further details not yet available). And Israel's embassy in London is blogging Aid2Gaza. This shows a new respect for the blogosphere.
4. In and of themselves, these activities wouldn't be so newsworthy (except for the Twitter press conference). But when you connect the dots, its clear there's a well-thought P.R. plan behind all this. Government officials and army brass have clearly learned some lessons from the Second War in Lebanon.
5. Israel has given the world a taste of what might be in store from a web savvy Obama administration. The president-elect's advisors are surely taking note. Has the Jewish state's success raised unspoken expectations for a White House 2.0?
Of course, these efforts are only successful if people join the debate on Twitter, watch and share the videos on YouTube, and post their comments on the blogs.
Did I leave anything out? How significant is Israel's new social media outreach?
