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[Please note: This comment is in two parts due to Diigo restrictions on length] Thanks for posting this article Hans. I found it extremely useful for my own understanding of Flash Mobs, which is also my chosen topic. Molnar gives both a comprehensive history from the very first Flash Mob organized in a New York department store by the senior editor of Harper's magazine Bill Wasik in June 2003, right up to the fact that the term "Flash Mob" was listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004 due to the global popularity of this type of temporary event (Molnar, 2009). Detailing the rise of this popular fleeting entertainment, Molnar (2009) compares Flash mobs to other forms of expression that have occurred from the early 20th century, the surrealism of the inter-war period and even the 1960s and contemporary culture jammers, stating that these types of activities existed long before the Internet, mobile communication and social media forms such as Twitter and Facebook. In this respect, Molnar's ideas are similar to those of Kravets (2011) and his thoughts that despite the Internet being blocked by the Egyptian government, the people were still able to come together to organize political protests about the Mubarak regime through word-of-mouth and leaflet delivery. However the success of Flash Mobs would not be as significant without the Internet. The organizational and collaborative efforts required to coordinate large groups of people who generally do not know each other, would be a hard task to achieve without the assistance of Internet-related social media and mobile phones. Additionally, the popularity of Flash Mobs would not be as significant if not for the availability of global sites such as YouTube, which are able to replay videos for as long as their user allows them to be visible and shared. [Continued in next comment]

[Continued from previous comment] In conclusion, as Molnar so aptly puts it, "the rapid global diffusion of flash mobs...has been crucial" for the rise, popularity and longevity of Flash Mobs as a new use of urban space, entertainment and publicity. If social media and the Internet were to suddenly cease, the occurrence of Flash Mobs would diminish drastically. Thank you so much for sharing this article Hans. It has been extremely useful for the topic of Flash Mobs. REFERENCES Kravets, D. (2011a). What's Fueling Mideast Protests? It's More Than Twitter. Published by Wired January 27, 2011. Retrieved April 12, 2011 from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/social-media-oppression/ Molnar (2009). Reframing Public Space: Flash Mobs and the Futility of Contemporary Urban Youth Culture. Retrieved April 12, 2011 from: http://ebookbrowse.com/f/flash-mobs-pdf-virag

the Avaaz organisation become more globally recognised, thus further empowering the abilities of itself and the people. References: Avaaz. (2011). Avaaz.org on Twitter. Retrieved from http://twitter.com/avaaz Avaaz.org. (2011a).The World in Action Retrieved from http://www.avaaz.org/en/about.php Avaaz.org. (2011b). Avaaz on Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/Avaaz?sk=wall AvaazOrg. (2011). Avaaz.org - The World In Action. YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/user/AvaazOrg Jenkins, H., Li, X., Krauskopf, A. & Green, J. (2009). If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead (Part Three): The Gift Economy and Commodity Culture. Retrieved from http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p_2.html

[This article is in two parts due to Diigo restrictions on length] Thanks for your article Jocelyn. I had actually never heard about AVAAZ until I followed your link to AVAAZ Facebook and read your comment. I also Googled "AVAAZ" and got this link: http://avaaz.org/en/ followed some of the stories, got to know about the organization...and signed up! It is amazing what the power of social media can achieve isn't it? What impressed me the most was that AVAAZ has found just about every global campaign worth petitioning for from cleaner suburban/city air to wikileaks, ending pokies addiction, awareness about corruption in Indian politics, saving the Grand Canyon from Uranium Mining and more. As one member on the AVAAZ Home page said: "There are people all over the world who feel the same way I do, and while individually we may not all have the time and resources to fight every fight that needs our attention, collectively, we have power." -Charlotte Sachs, Canada Avaaz member So the main idea of AVAAZ appears to be collaborating with other like-minded people to help make our Global world a safer, more enduring and happier place by making a stand and publicizing significant issues of Global concern. Your article has highlighted their attempt at Global collaboration via social networking sites but the question for me is, if I had not read your article, navigated to their Facebook site and Googled "AVAAZ" for further information, I would never have known. AVAAZ needs to spread their good works with decent news/radio/other publicity in addition to social networking, so their Global issues attain the attention and are hopefully addressed in a beneficial way. [Please navigate to the next comment]

activists to broadcast live video feeds even during internet and phone blackouts" (Avaaz.org, 2011c). This is a campaign to raise monies through 30,000 donors. Many more of their success stories can be viewed on the highlights page of the Avaaz website, success stories from the Avaaz movement worldwide (Avaaz.org, 2011d). References: Avaaz.org. (2011a).The World in Action Retrieved from http://www.avaaz.org/en/about.php Avaaz.org. (2011b). Stand With Anna Hazare [Petition]. Retrieved from http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_anna_hazare/ Avaaz.org. (2011c). Blackout-proof the protests [Fund-raising]. Retrieved from https://secure.avaaz.org/en/blackout_proof_the_protests/?vc Avaaz.org. (2011d). Success stories from the Avaaz movement worldwide. Retrieved from http://www.avaaz.org/en/highlights.php

The opening statement to this web site reads " Avaaz is a global movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere" (Avaaz.org, 2011) Immediately the reader is in no doubt that this is an organisation that is able to bring together large numbers of people to influence governments worldwide. Like other commentators I had not been aware of this organisation and spent some time researching. Unlike flash mobs and Anonymous, it appears that Avaaz has a formal structure and employs staff. As their website points out the staff write email alerts to the community and work with experts to develop campaign strategies (Avaaz.org, 2011). But it is the Avaaz community that decide where and how to campaign. This is very reminiscent of the Australian Democrats, where all policies are decided by a poll of members (Australian Democrats, 2011). Flash mobs occur in local communities, but the global nature of Avaaz means that this can be magnified to call attention to new issues on a worldwide or country-by-country basis if needed. The key to Avaaz, flash mobs and Anonymous is the use of Internet communication Technology. As the Avaaz website points out in "previous times each group would need to build up a constituency to reach a scale that could make a difference….Today thanks to new technology and ….. global interdependence this constraint no longer applies" (Avaaz.org, 2011). Australian Democrats.(2011). Structure of the Australian Democrats. Retrieved from http://www.democrats.org.au/about/structure.htm Avaaz.org.(2011). The World in Action. Retrieved from http://www.avaaz.org/en/about.php

Avaaz's systems of collaboration allow decentralized networks to form around community and global projects, " ...(taking) action on pressing global, regional and national issues, from corruption and poverty to conflict and climate change" (Avaaz 2011). The Avaaz community, like Anonymous, are examples of how decentralized networks of like-minded individuals are capable of achieving common goals. The influences and successes that these groups are currently having regarding the sharing of global resources and fighting for basic human rights and freedoms of information show how powerful these network structures can be. The strength and flexibility of collective intelligence networks such as Avaaz and Anonymous is found in the diversity of their participants. For example, Avaaz uses methods that "allows thousands of individual efforts, however small, to be rapidly combined into a powerful collective force" (Avaaz 2011). Similarly, Anonymous is "a loose network of people with shared values and varying skill sets" (Anonymous, 2011). Like all collective intelligence networks, every member of these groups is acknowledged as having valuable skills that can benefit the community - so a method of harnessing this is input has been developed. However Avaaz and Anonymous use different techniques regarding how they attempt to achieve their goals. Avaaz use socially and politically transparent methods of traditional protest such as "signing petitions, funding media campaigns and direct actions, emailing, calling and lobbying governments, and organizing "offline" protests and events". In contrast, Anonymous are notorious for their use of "distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks" using software such as 'Low Orbit Ion Cannon'; or 'LOIC' (see, Arthur, C. 2010). These different ways of collaborating online show that while "the social, political and technological environment has developed, some have already begun to explore new options, seizing new chances