Welcome to the Friday#
This week in The Sizzle: European Commission asked to explain their ‘database of pirates’. The Fri-Up: Gaddafi’s timeline through social media. The Sauce: Bad lipreading
The Sizzle
- Libyan social media jubilation
- Fall in Abu Dhabi & Dubai traffic accidents linked to BlackBerry outage
- Twitter chief: We will protect our users from Government
- Watchdog mauls Euro database of ‘pirates’
- Social media’s biggest fails
The Fri-Up
Gaddafi’s timeline through social media
While Libyans celebrate as images bloodied dictator are streamed across the world’s news channels, we look back at the conflict and Gaddafi through social media.
The timeline below shows mentions of Gaddafi from March 15 until now. We’ve highlighted spikes in mentions indicating significant events in the conflict.
Fig 1. Mentions of Gaddafi from Mar 15 – October 20 2011
Click graph to see full size
1. March 19: Barack Obama has deliveres a frank ultimatum to Muammar Gaddafi, threatening military action if he ignores demands for a ceasefire
2. March 31: NATO strike kills 13 including 7 revolutionaries.
3. April 11: Rebel leaders rejected a cease-fire proposal today from African mediators, saying the terms did not include their demand for Muammar Gaddafi to relinquish power
4. May 1: Britain withdraws envoys from Libya after embassy attack
5. June 28: Live ammunition fired at Libyan people as Gaddafi orders “shoot to kill”
6. Aug 22: Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports that Gaddafi’s son Al-Saadi has been captured and NATO bomb Gaddafi’s Tripoli compound. World leaders urge Gaddafi to resign.
7. September 16: Rebels move on on Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte
8. October 20: Gaddafi killed after being found in sewer, his convoy having been bombed.
Finally, let’s take a look at the page type breakdown and how the Libyan story has been spread around the world.
Fig 2. Page types mentioning Gaddafi from Mar 15 – October 20 2011
Click graph to see full size
And here are the top sites:
Fig 2. Page types mentioning Gaddafi from Mar 15 – October 20 2011
Click graph to see full size
As the Libyan people begin their long journey to freedom, the power of social media and its facility to move more people to comment and share discussion and news on world events than ever before is clear.
The Sauce
Something for the weekend:
Hope you enjoyed the Friday#, have a great weekend.
If you haven’t already joined us on twitter – we’d love to see you there: @brandwatch
If you want demos on how to use our latest improvements to optimise your reports and social media monitoring it’s all on our blog.
If you’d like any support with using Brandwatch’s social media monitoring tool contact [email protected]