It is interesting to watch the reports on the news right now about the fallout from the Iranian elections. There are several levels of interest:

• The fact that people are taking to the streets by the tens of thousands by some accounts to make their voices heard
• The civil disobedience against the governments demands that the protests stop
• The attempted crackdown by the government to block foreign reporting, text capabilities, Internet access, and Social Media platforms

Despite the repeated attempts of the Iranian government to stop the flow of accounts, pictures and videos from leaving its borders, Social Media platforms are the primary source of information on this story. 

I have long believed that the use and increased adoption of Social Media platforms would transform where we turned for information, how information is shared, and how virtual networks would increase the rate at which messages spread. I did not predict that these platforms would become the primary source of information for major news outlets in 2009, but they have. It is interesting to see the repeated reports on CNN over the course of the past week as they telecast to the world the latest video and images they found on sources like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and blogs. People on the streets in Iran fighting to be heard are finding creative ways to access and use these platforms to show the world what is happening to them on their streets. CNN now has a team of people scouring the social web looking for the latest news, stories, images and compelling details to share with the world.

Without these user-generated-content platforms, all of us outside of Iran would be dependent on formal Iran news releases, or severe delays in updates from the streets. The power of the social web has been discussed at length in the past two years. Now, everyone is seeing that power firsthand as they watch and read the news. This power is not only usable to spread the word about political movements and civil unrest in Iran. Messages of all shapes and sizes about all different topics, movements, companies, products, needs, etc. are and will continue to be shared through created networks on Social Media platforms. Iran just created the first instance where everyone around the globe, one way or another, is participating in this space.