Betty White on Saturday Night Live made the famous comment that Facebook sounded like a "huge waste of time". Well,the Egyptians proved today that it is not! President Mubarak stepped down after a non-violent street protest unprecedented in recent memory.
By all accounts Facebook (and Twitter) made the Egyptian revolution possible. Online communication helped rally Egyptians, rally support from the outside world and in all likelihood was used to communicate between the Egyptian military and the public. The latter is very likely because in these situations some security person always tends to get provoked and there is some sort of escalation. Unless there was huge regular communication, it would have been really difficult to keep the military calm and in good humor with the protestors throughout.
Anyway, with the Egyptian revolution I guess everyone needs to see the potential of change and innovation with social networking websites. Organizations, value chains in business,teachers,parents need to re-look at what great things social networking can do.
For starters, to celebrate the Egyptian revolution, I joined Facebook today !