Article 1: Can social networking change the world?

My first article; Innovation: How social networking might change the world, looks at the positive side of social networking. While this topic is often in the news and media reports for negative reasons; like bullying, this article shows that social networking can make a positive difference. It can help people improve thier lives and makes them feel like they are part of something better and bigger.
Tim O'Reilly (founder of 0'Reilly Media) challenged the community-driven web to come up with something more productive then seemingly useless internet applications last year and this article gives examples of networks that use social networking to produce positive and beneficial results. 
The examples include the Obama '08 application, which allowed campaigners to easily communicate and organize contacts; a social networking site called We20, which organised people to meet up and discuss economic issues and a site, Accesscity, where people analysis the best routes across London. All of these sites have been helpful to people across communities and advertise the benefits of social networking. The most impressive example is the site, Zimride, which claims to have enabled 300,000 users to carpool, thus helping each other and the enviroment hugely.
I thought this was a really good article to summarise as social networking is a great interest to me and it demonstrates the good it can be used for which is a nice change in comparasion to the bad media attention it noramlly gets. It also gives hope for a more positive kind of future for social networking. It shows the good in people and the will to do good, which the community-driven web can aid. 
The article ends on a really nice note, which is Karma points. It is hoped that one day web users will compete for global karma points online to better the world further.It shows that computer technology and the internet do not need to be feared but it also importantly shows that the web has many uses and as well as sharing information it can be used to start something big and great, not just write up on it. The idea of Facebook users competing for Karma points just shows the good social networking already does and what the future could hold.

(http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16681-innovation-how-social-networking-might-change-the-world.html)