Recently I enjoyed a forum at the Nextwave festival in Melbourne in which Mark Pesce, spoke on the impacts social networking technologies are having on our interactions with each other and power structures in society generally.

Mark’s talk (above) in particular was most intriguing as he described how his twitter network informed him of the Sichuan earthquake’s epicentre, impacts and ‘ground truths’ as he calls them well before the global mainstream media networks were able. Quite amazing when you think this is one mans’ twitter network. He made the point that these networks are one of the biggest threats to global news media. Another two examples of how social networks are changing and challenging the power structures of society follow, one in which he describes how a blogging site played a pivotal role in bringing down a US Attorney General (no less!).

More on Mark’s blog