You piece in this video was great!

I’d have to agree more with your panel mate than with Scobel on the part about the upsurge from the crowd. The thing about 1% of the crowd being on Twitter sounds way off to me too. Even if it were true, the twitterers almost by default represent a larger population. We just happen to tweet about it. I don’t know what this thing he was talking about that happened in 1991. Who does?

The lady’s point was that it was an upsurge from the crowd. Maybe it was twitter, maybe it was meebo. Who cares. The point is that the people are using these “social tools” to connect with similar thinking people, find the strength in their numbers, and affect their lives, particularly if they unify around an injustice (which evidently they felt this was). So no, this is not what was going on in 1991.

(ok, I’m spending way too much time on this, but it helps me really think about it).

Scoble says our emotions were fueling us, and Markie Z! was merely the catalyst to set that off. I think the part Scoble is missing is that the volatility of the “fuel”, it’s explosiveness, was highly escalated by the crowd mentality. It’s a digital version of the Mob Mentality phenomena.

It was great to be there and be a part of all this. It’s good that it happened the way it did. We’ll all benefit from it. Cheers!

@Dave Barger – It really is mob mentality. There certainly is a psychological element to what happened. We feel safer in numbers and in association with others, so when discontent erupts in a public forum it’s so easy to jump on the bandwagon. Mob mentality isn’t anything new, but twitter as a vehicle certainly is. I can’t wait to attend another tech event so I can look for any trends.