Mobile empowerment

From the panorama by Hank Chung.

On New Years Eve 2005 the shopping centers and department stores in the Xinyi district of Taipei extended their hours, keeping the area lit, for the reported 400,000 people who were present to watch the spectacular fireworks display coming from the Taipei 101 building.

I've been thinking about this photo recently and the effect viewing it had on me at that time. There is nothing like seeing a large crowd of people simultaneously capturing an event on their mobile devices to waken you to the realization that a fundamental shift had occurred. People had stopped being simply passive consumers of content to content creators. Mobile tools had empowered this whole group of people.

This is far more common place today and you are more likely to find near real time images or tweets of an incident or event from an individual or group than any of the large media organizations.

Mobile empowerment

From the panorama by Hank Chung. On New Years Eve 2005 the shopping centers and department stores in the Xinyi district of Taipei extended their hours, keeping the area lit, for the reported 400,000 people who were present to watch the spectacular fireworks display coming from the Taipei 101 building. I've been thinking about this photo recently and the effect viewing it had on me at that time. There is nothing like seeing a large crowd of people simultaneously capturing an event on their mobile devices to waken you to the realization that a fundamental shift had occurred. People had stopped being simply passive consumers of content to content creators. Mobile tools had empowered this whole group of people. This is far more common place today and you are more likely to find near real time images or tweets of an incident or event from an individual or group than any of the large media organizations.