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The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a House response to the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that is under consideration in the Senate. These bills would require internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that infringe on copyrights.

Simply put, anything that you re-post that is not your original content would be considered a copyright infringement. In many countries with internet access, online piracy is a massive problem for the industry, in China alone it costs $250 billion per year. However, this means potentially that anything you Re-Tumble, Re-Tweet or Re-tag could be considered piracy. These publishing laws would affect some of the most well-known and heavily trafficked sites on the web. Virtually everything on Wikipedia, Youtube, and Tumblr would be illegal to publish.

Internet giants who are fighting against the bill have made this an international day of protest by “blacking out” their websites.

Wikipedia

Google

WordPress

What you can do about it – Sign the petition and join the largest online protest in history – tell Congress to stop this bill now!

PhoneDog Twitter Lawsuit

The year may be 2012 but there are un-discussed issues from the previous year that we need to set right.  Towards the end of 2011, Noah Kravitz, former employee of PhoneDog, was slammed with a $340,000 lawsuit for stealing their customer list.

While working for the mobile phone site, Kravitz operated under the twitter handle @Phonedog_Noah, gaining 17,000 followers for the brand. Upon his departure from the company in October 2010, PhoneDog allowed Noah to keep the account in exchange for occasional post

After changing the account to @NoahKravitz and tweeting for eight months, PhoneDog sued claiming “the Twitter list was a

customer list,” and they are “seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months” which accounts for the massive total.

As new forms of media emerge, new rules and laws must come about to define terms of intellectual property. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out; it will be one of the first cases that set the standard and guidelines of ownership and “cost of followers” on the Internet. Stay tuned!

Find a Kidney on Facebook

Technological evolution occurs across all industries and in one particular healthcare case in the end of 2011, the medical and social media industries collided.

The first kidney transplant was performed over 60 years ago in 1950, and the procedure has since been perfected. However, the problem of needing a donor makes the process less than ideal. Recipients can wait up to three years for a kidney from the live or dead donor list.

Social media has helped to change the game, most recently for Damon Brown, a father of two in Seattle, Washington. Although Brown admits that as a typically stoic person he was reluctant to put his illness out on his social networks, he was shocked and gratified to find positive response. After creating a Facebook page that gathered the support of 1,400 friends, four passed the initial screening with one of them eventually providing the correct match.

It is always exciting to see an application of social media that helps to change lives. As Facebook grows in size and reach it will be able to continue connecting people in need to those who are willing to donate!

New Social Network

One of the most commonly used phrases in the PR industry is “What will be the ‘new social network’?” and there has been much speculation as to whether it will be G+… or another new player in the race.

Rumors have been circulating that Apple may have something new in the works for this year. In the same vein of the iPod revolutionizing the music industry and the iPhone revolutionizing the telephone, any platform Apple would come out with could absolutely have the potential to turn the social media platform giants on end. With the proliferation of iPods, iPads, and iPhones to the mainstream media, it will be interesting to see if the new platform will seize the attention of the Apple loving public, a problem that G+ has encountered, despite its growing 293 million users.

The past weekend we all officially “fell back” and if it threw off your schedule a little bit, here are some things you might have missed in the tech world since last Friday:

1. The CIA is watching you Tweet – According to a news article by the AP our government is monitoring what we have to say in social media spaces. After receiving an unexpected and unprecedented look inside the CIA, the AP has reported that the Central Intelligence Agency sees some 5 million tweets per day. While Twitter is a tool that one hopes citizens use for good; for example, as a means of gathering support or inviting people to a protest; with the proliferation of social media use in order to start riots across the globe, the CIA  reports that it watches Twitter with the best interests of national security.

2. Occupy Wall Street gets its own Social Media Aggregator – The Occupy movement has gained a large portion of its momentum online with protestors organizing via social media channels, especially Twitter. While the movement has soldered steadily along towards its third month of “Occupation” on November 17^th, Boulder Digital Works created an organizational system called Occupationalist to serve as a landing page for the movement’s many Tweets and updates. Subdivided so that each “Occupy” city maintains a separate stream, the site also offers pictures, videos and real time check-ins. No matter what your feelings on the protest, it is undeniable that they have done a great job leveraging social media to their advantage.

3. Movember – Since 1999 “Mo Bro’s” everywhere have championed the cause of Prostate as well as other cancers that affect men, by growing a mustache to last for the entire month of November. After registering with the official Movember Charity online, a “Mo Space” is created where members form teams and are able to track money raised for the cause. This year, for the first time, Movember bros are able to link with Facebook via Facebook Connect. The app allows moustache growing cancer crusaders to more easily showcase their teams and mustache pictures encouraging donations from their friends and spreading awareness. Take a look at the Movemeber website for more information or if you are interested in participating.

4. Mozilla Firefox 8 - Today! Although many dispute which Internet browser is the best – Safari, Explorer, Opera, Chrome, etc. – we can all agree that for professionals it is important to make sure your browser of choice is up to date. Today, the second most frequently used – Firefox – is available for upgrade, before the official release date, tomorrow, November 8^th. The download is available from their FTP server and will be manual, but if you can’t wait, download Firefox now for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

**5. G+ pages for Business - As we were posting this blog, G+ business pages debuted! There are still lots of questions to be answered about who and how these pages can be utilized, but we decided to create our own profile early so that we could best analyze the situation. Come have a look for yourself!

We here at integratePR are constantly bringing up the continually important role social media is playing in our lives. Beyond the simple networking for social and business purposes, it has been a network of shared information, bringing content to people all over the world.

We’ve previously talked about the role social media played in Osama Bin Laden’s death, or more recently the role it played in Shaq’s retirement, or Rep. Anthony Weiner’s scandal. Currently it is playing a very important role in the life of a young college student.

20-year-old Indiana University student Lauren Spierer has been missing since early Friday morning of last week. Rather than sit by, her friends have taken to social media to try and find her.

They’ve developed a Twitter account called @NewsOnLaurenS and began to reach out to major news organizations like CNN or the Indianapolis Star asking for help on finding Lauren and getting her story out there.

The account now has almost 10,000 followers and has sent out more than 300 tweets since Sunday. Through the account they have sent followers updates, digital flyers with photos, organized search parties, etc.

They have also taken to Facebook to setup up an event to spread word of Lauren, which is being attended by 126,000 people. They’ve also made a page called find.lauren, which has been liked by over 20,000 people.

The story has been picked up by several news organizations including Fox and ABC, and celebrities like Miranda Lambert have lent a helping hand by tweeting about Lauren.

It is a great effort and though Lauren has not yet been found, no one can say that her friends are not doing everything they can to find her. Through social media they have made sure that her story is known and that people continue to search for her and spread the news of her disappearance.

We are truly amazed by the efforts and the wide outreach they have. We hope Lauren is found soon and in the mean time applaud her friends for their effective use of social media to help find her.

Well another weekend has come and gone, so to help you get back into the swing of things this week, integratePR is bringing you our Social Media Newsflash!  Social media was a busy platform last week, from scandals to big announcements. In case you missed any of the excitement, here is what you need to know:

1)   Shaq Tweets Retirement

That’s right, Shaq is retiring from the great game of basketball, and before he told his team, the Boston Celtics, he first sent out a tweet! On Wednesday Shaq tweeted, “im retiring,” along with a short video of him saying, “We did it; 19 years, baby. Thank you very much. That’s why I’m telling you first: I’m about to retire. Love you. Talk to you soon”.  The video was hosted by Tout as part of a partnership between the start-up and the NBA star (who contacted them weeks earlier with his retirement plan).While the Celtics may not have appreciated the tweet, Shaq’s 3.8 million followers sure did, and the hashtag #ShaqRetires became a trending topic.

2)   Facebook Goes to Court

Facebook is taking legal action againt Paul Ceglia in response to his claim to own 50% of Zuckerberg’s Facebook stake. Ceglia claims to have a contract signed by Zuckerberg giving him rights to 50% of the company’s stake. Ceglia initially filed a lawsuit in July of 2010 claiming to own 84% of the stake, the change in his story has prompted Facebook’s charge that he is a fraud. The company is asking to examine the supposed contract to determine its validity.

3)   Rep. Weiner’s Twitter Scandal

Lewd photos were tweeted out from New York Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account. All week Weiner has claimed his account was hacked, but his continual refusal to deny that the actual image is a photo of him, has led many to question his hacker story. Mashable has pointed out however a hacker could easily have access to his account if they knew his yfrog.com address (through which photos are posted onto Twitter). No one knows for certain but unfortunatly for Weiner, this tweet does not seem to be going away!

Well that’s all for your update. Unfortunately it’s back to two day weekends again, but we here at integratePR are definitely enjoyed our weekend and are excited for what the new week has in store! To help you kick-start your week you should also check out this video! It’s our new obsession; too cute!