Blur the lines

Order Heartstone

ISBN-13: 978-1449976286
ISBN-10: 144997628X

List Price: $14.99

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Heartstone

Dear Blur The Lines Community,

I have been working hard over the past 6 years to share my journey - my story in a book titled "Heartstone". I am excited to share with you that I am targeting this summer to actually publish the book. I recently launched a website and Facebook page experience for the  book. The Heartstone blog will follow soon.

Please check out my new web site and Facebook page and let me know what you think. It would also be great if you decied to join the Heartstone community.

Web - http://www.heartstonejourney.com/

FB Page - http://www.facebook.com/heartstonejourney

Blessings,
Tim

Instant Feedback

I thought Superbowl 45 ended up to be a great game, but I was almost more  interested in the conversations happening in real time in my Twitterverse. After struggling through the half-time show, I decided to jump into Twitter to see what people were saying. I watched the tweets fly by on my droid in real time as public opinion cast their vote, imploding the half-time show with instant feedback.

I also thought it was interesting getting up-to-the-second commentary on the Superbowl commercials as the Twitter community weighed in with instant feedback. I wonder if the companies that paid huge sums of money to get air time during the Super Bowl were watching the Twitter conversations polling public opinion?

Twitter gave instant audience to the Super Bowl, the half-time show and the commercials and what was really cool is I was abe to participate and offer up my instant feedback too. I did jump over to Facebook to see what what was happening, which was nothing.....and decided to camp out in Twitter for the rest of the game. @jsym sent me a message via Twitter "@plake777 Of course! FB has a different kind of crowd."

Did you Tweet during the game?

What commercials did you like? Dislike?

Power of Social Networks

I'm sure by this point, you have stumbled upon a headline reagrding the situation in Egypt.There is such a groudswell leveraging Facebook and Twitter that the goverment of Egypt have shut them down, because people used social networks to coordinate their efforts on the streets in Cairo, Egypt

I wanted to share an excerpt from a blog post from Joel Rosenberg, "REVOLUTION IN EGYPT? IS JORDAN NEXT? REGIONAL INSTABILITY RISING RAPIDLY"

Is Egypt about to erupt in a full-blown revolution that could lead to the fall of the Mubarak regime? Might Jordan's government be next?

One thing's for certain: no one predicted the demonstrations in Egypt would grow so big so fast. Momentum for the protests is growing. A Facebook page promoting the democracy protests grew from 20,000 members on Wednesday to 80,000 on Thursday. The government then reportedly shut down Facebook, and disrupted internet service in parts of the country. Twitter has been blocked. Police are beating protesters.

One key factor few are seeing at the moment: economics. Egyptians are suffering double-digit inflation and record food prices in recent years, and particularly in 2010. Most people are already dirt poor. Soaring food prices are causing them to fear they may not be able to feed their families. This is creating a "perfect storm" of anger against the Mubarak regime -- it's corrupt, authoritarian, anti-human rights, and resistant to all positive economic and political reform. It's been bad for the thirty years Mubarak has been in power. But with high inflation, especially for food, Egyptians are being pushed over the brink.

Calls for Mubarak to step down are growing. "Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog turned Egyptian reform campaigner, said he expected big demonstrations across Egypt on Friday, and that it was time for President Hosni Mubarak to go," reported Reuters. "ElBaradei, 68, left Vienna, where he lives, for Cairo on Thursday to join a growing wave of protests against Mubarak inspired by Tunisia's overthrow of their authoritarian president. He told Reuters he would not lead the street rallies, but that his role was 'to manage the change politically.'" On Friday, however, ElBaradei was placed under house arrest in Egypt.