How can a blog, let alone single text messages, rally seemingly disconnected people and help them unite for a common cause? Well, the people in and surrounding Xiamen demonstrated just that.On June 1st, 1 million Chinese residents in the southeast city of Xiamen demonstrated peaceably to protest the city's plans to build a toxic chemical plant near the city's center. What is notable about this event is that it not only began through a single blog and rapidly disseminated across the blogosphere, but a large portion of the mobile-lization was through SMS text messages. Anonymous texts were sent out days prior to the event, which were then forwarded to numerous others. The rest is history.
The lesson learned? Grassroots and community-based initiatives can be sparked with something as simple as a text message. And the demonstration, even with the Chinese government's attempts to quell and quiet those very outlets, still yielded pretty laudable and impressive results.
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