Social media have become the new frontline of Thailand's political scene with Facebook and Twitter activity exploding over recent weeks in Bangkok.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Facebook page has over 300,000 followers, while Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij's page has over 61,000. Many popular groups have emerged, such as ``STOP! Ruined [sic] Thailand'', which has over 22,000 members.
The political unrest has given rise to many other Facebook groups as people use the website to express their political views without fear of government censorship.
``Thailand Chaos Update'' (9,877 members) Thailand Chaos Update (9,877) posts updates about the current situation, missing people, danger zones and safety warnings for Bangkok residents.
``Watch Red Shirt'' (51,549) provides updates on the red shirt movement.
Many groups have also been created to counter a perceived pro-Thaksin bias in reporting by foreign news agencies. ``Real BBC_Bloody Bulls**t Corporation'' slams what the group calls the British broadcaster's ``biased, unethical and irresponsible approach to international journalism''.
Likewise, the group ``CNN Please Fire Dan Rivers'' targets what members regard as the biased reporting of the CNN journalist.
The ``I Support PM Abhisit'' (86,700) has had more posts than the prime minister's official page as people express support for him.
The ``Over one million Thai people miss CentralWorld'' page was created shortly after reports of the devastating arson attacks on the shopping centre and now has over 28,000 fans.
Meanwhile, Twitter has become the medium of choice of many for breaking news and analysis.
Traffic on the micro-blogging network reached a frenzy in the run-up to and immediately following the arson attacks throughout the capital.
Twitter users sent pictures and videos of everything from fires to protesters hit by sniper fire as well as live reports from the US embassy town hall meeting of American citizens in Bangkok.
Users of the service captured unforgettable images, perhaps none more so than those of a baby being held above a red shirt barricade sent by user @freakingcat.
Along with eyewitness accounts, came a sea of emotion as Twitter users expressed sorrow - and often outrage -at unfolding events.
The Thai ``Twittersphere'' has grown up. Gone are the days when it was primarily a conduit for the rumour mill.
Newspapers and TV channels have taken up the medium. At The Nation, both its former and current editors were tweeting breaking news, gossip and other stories, as well as polling Twitter followers for ideas.
The majority of reliable reports came from professional reporters in the field rather than citizen journalists.
Gossip or news from unreliable sources was routinely challenged for sources and clarification.
Twitter also had translators such as the Bangkok Post's Terry Fredrickson (@terryfrd), who provided English translations of what was being said on the red shirt stage as well as announcements from the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation.
The spectrum of views expressed on Twitter over the past week was wide, and included expatriates who expressed support for Thaksin as the democratically elected leader of Thailand and disdain for Mr Abhisit, as the head of a military-backed government. Views on the monarchy were expressed that are not fit for print.
Beyond Facebook and Twitter, Google Guru is quickly becoming another Pantip.com. Designed as a venue in which questions can be posed, Guru is quickly making a name for itself as a replacement for Pantip.com's Ratchadamnoen forum, which is now closed.
"The world's gone social. And women are more social than men." --Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Facebook, the largest social networking tool in the world, is dominated by women.
According to BrianSolis.com and Google Ad Planner, the 400-million member site is 57% female and attracts 46 million more female visitors than male visitors per month. Plus, women are more active on Facebook. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says women on Facebook have 8% more friends and participate in 62% of the sharing. "The social world is led by women," she concludes. And they're leading that charge online.
Women are the majority of users on many of the biggest social networking sites, including Twitter, MySpace, Bebo and Flickr. Men, meanwhile, are most active on sites like Digg, YouTube and LinkedIn, which are more content-oriented and promotional than discussion-based.
However, women don't just visit different sites from men, they use social media differently than men. Experts believe the difference between how men and women operate online mirror their motivations offline. While women often use online social networking tools to make connections and share items from their personal lives, men use them as means to gather information and increase their status.
"We're women--we like to talk about things. Women use social media as a way to connect," says Jodi Kahn, the head of iVillage. A recent joint study from BlogHer and iVillage supports her theory, reporting that three-quarters of women use online communities to stay up to date with friends and family, and 68% use them to "connect with others like me."
On message boards and forums, Kahn says that both sexes seek information and advice, but women tend to get more personal. She says women want to learn about real people experiencing similar conflicts. "Women are online solving real-life issues. If I'm a mom who is about to start potty training, it's important to me to hear how other real moms are doing it," says Kahn.
Men, on the other hand, are researchers and social climbers. Professor of social media marketing at UC Berkeley, Lorrie Thomas, says men use social media as an "interactive Rolodex," storing contact information for future use.
Sherry Perlmutter Bowen, a gender and communication professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, says she's seeing men use social media to gather information and boost their influence. "I see males espousing their wisdom on social media sites and using social media to sell, to compete, to 'climb the ladder,'" she says.
According to Bowen, these gender differences are rooted in communication styles learned since birth. "Girls and boys are often raised in two distinct cultures where they learn different rules and norms for behavior and talk: Girls learn to build relationships by sharing social information. Boys learn to compare and compete with others, always striving for more success."
Psychologist Leslie Sokol, author of self-help book Think Confident, Be Confident, believes virtual communication differences between men and women can be tracked back through history as evolutionary methods of survival. Throughout time, males have been in competition with each other, even in the animal kingdom, she says. "The sexiest bird with the brightest plumage and best territory got all the women." Because it was in their best interest not to show weaknesses or give away their strategies, men became more reserved as an adaptive method, she says.
Sokol believes that women, the gatherers and community builders, had to work as a team to survive. They needed to use each other as resources and adapted to be more supportive by sharing their plans, shortcomings and advice. Today, women are still more likely to be forthcoming and verbose than men, she says, a difference that is reflected online.
Diana Windley, 39, is a good example. The assistant vice president of marketing at Goldenwest Credit Union in Utah uses several networking sites mainly to keep up with friends and read and discuss things she likes, rather than using it for business or promotional purposes. She also blogs about her life as career mom. Everyday she signs into Facebook to reconnect with old friends from high school and college and to build new relationships with neighbors and extended family. On Twitter she aims to make connections with people who aren't in her immediate circle but share similar interests in career, parenting and religion.
On the other hand, Allen Chen, 31, a communications assistant at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, uses networking sites as mediums to discuss ideas rather than share personal information. He logs onto Facebook several times a day to post interesting articles, which solicit responses from his 175 friends. He also uses Twitter to keep up on current events by following news outlets and "strangers" who share common interests in sports and technology.
Elisa Camahort Page, cofounder and chief operating officer of BlogHer, believes men leverage social media for broadcasting their ideas and skills vs. women who find connections with others by sharing the ups and downs of their daily lives.
Men are more active blog participants, she explains. They are more likely to read, write and post comments to blogs. Surprisingly, both men and women report that their most common blog topic is "my life," she says. However, the second most popular topic for men is business and career, and food and fashion are tied in second place for women.
Men are also more active users of YouTube, with about 20% more men visiting the video-sharing site per week, according to the BlogHer-iVillage study. Camahort Page believes men prefer the site because it is more passive. "[YouTube] is about finding, consuming and passing along content, but it's not about conversation."
Not surprisingly, the different ways men and women approach social media are beginning to be noticed and exploited by advertisers. Scott Staab, group creative director of marketing agency T3, whose clients include JCPenney and UPS, has recently been interested in women social gamers. Women are the majority of online social gamers (such as the Facebook application FarmVille) and often play with their friends, he explains.
Staab says that a woman who advocates for a brand online is more likely to influence her friends. "Some of our clients skew highly female, and we are going into social gaming because it's an area that we know women spend more time." Companies would be smart to create their own games to draw in users, Staab says, because "it doesn't have to be about pushing product all the time. It's about brand engagement."
According to Kelly O'Neill, director of product marketing at e-commerce software firm ATG, beauty store Sephora targets women by tapping into social networking sites to advertise promotions and sales. In a recent ATG survey, twice as many women as men said they frequently share purchasing activities on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. So Sephora advertises promotions with its Facebook page and often tweets about sales to its Twitter followers. Plus, fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Urban Outfitters have honed in on women's dominance in social media by creating virtual fashion shows to engage them online.
Patty Kennedy, founder of communications firm Kennedy Spencer, uses her knowledge of gendered behavior on social networking sites to better target men and women for her clients, which include Coca-Cola and P&G. Kennedy Spencer uses "transactional" sites like LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter to attract men, sharing content like articles, facts and games that they hope will spark their interest. It uses conversation-based sites like Facebook and "mom blogs" to spark dialogue among women.
Says Facebook's Sandberg, "If you reach women [online], they will tell their friends." What may be an evolutionary fact turns out to be a marketer's dream.
JohnAMacDougall http://bit.ly/diZkt7 - See if your #friends are on #Twitter. Yes, #follow them. No. #Invite them. 
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