While his Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams and the rest of the South by Southwest Interactive crowds were bouncing between dueling Foursquare, Twitter, Mashable and StumbleUpon parties last night, Biz Stone was announcing his membership in the UN's "Social Media Envoy" -- through a tweet of course.
Today, United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria, Ray Chambers, announced the formation of a Social Media Envoy group chartered with inspiring and activating social media audiences throughout the year in support of malaria control. The Social Media Envoys are dedicated to utilizing their social profile to keep online and offline media audiences focused on the movement, milestones and resources required to achieve the Secretary-General's goal of providing all endemic African countries with malaria control interventions by the end of 2010.
The group includes a predictable list of Social Media queens and kings including Mashable's, Pete Cashmore; Arianna Huffington; Alyssa Milano; Ryan Seacrest; and Sarah Brown, wife of UK Prime Minister and maternal health activist. The full list is below. Noticeably absent from the launch group is, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) the man who revolutionized the use of Twitter for a good cause in his race to 1 million followers against CNN. Larry King is on the list. However, Kutcher has been tweeting under the #socialmediaenvoy tag and I'm sure he will officially join the Social Media Envoys for their April 25th launch. The group has pledged to take at least one Social Media action in support of ending malaria each month for a year.
In case Twitter's dominance was in doubt, every Envoy member is listed with a link to their Twitter profile with the exception of Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg. She naturally links to her infrequently updated (by comaprison to the twitterati) Facebook page.
While the announcement timing coincdied with SXSWi, I've seen no sign of the Social Media Envoy here in Austin. In fact, unlisted member Ashton, is the only one I've seen running around SXSW tweeting it and talking it up. Evan Williams (@ev) didn't mention the program during his keynote today...in fact, he didn't even give his buddy Biz (@biz) a ReTweet! I guess it's up to us, and Ashton.
RT @biz Malaria is a devastating disease--together we can help! http://bit.ly/cpcqhb #socialmediaenvoy
The Future Starts, erm...Everywhere.
(Cross-posted from Future:Media:Change)
- Derrick Ashong, Musician, Social Activist & Oprah Radio host; www.twitter.com/ashong
- Veronica Belmont, Host of "Tekzilla" and "Qore" and Internet Personality; www.twitter.com/Veronica
- Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey; www.twitter.com/CoryBooker
- Sarah Brown, of the United Kingdom; www.twitter.com/SarahBrown10
- Pete Cashmore, CEO and founder of "Mashable--the Social Media Guide"; www.twitter.com/mashable
- Anderson Cooper, CNN Anchor of "Anderson Cooper 360"; www.twitter.com/andersoncooper
- Dennis Crowley, Co-founder of Foursquare; www.twitter.com/DENS
- Anil Dash, Director of Expert Labs and Partner at Activate; www.twitter.com/anildash
- Justine Ezarik "iJustine", Internet Personality; www.twitter.com/iJustine
- Jack Gray, CNN Producer/Writer for "Anderson Cooper 360"; www.twitter.com/JackGrayCNN
- Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post; www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
- Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop.com; www.twitter.com/GuyKawasaki
- Larry King, CNN Host of "Larry King Live"; www.twitter.com/kingsthings
- Loic Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic; www.twitter.com/Loic
- Alyssa Milano, Actress; www.twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano
- Dave Morin, Former Facebook executive- responsible for Facebook Connect and Platform; www.twitter.com/davemorin
- Jeff Pulver, Founder of 140 Characters Conference (#140conf) and Co-founder of VoIP (Vonage); www.twitter.com/jeffpulver
- Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg; www.twitter.com/kevinrose
- Chris Sacca, Founder of Lowercase Capital; www.twitter.com/sacca
- Ryan Seacrest, Founder, Ryan Seacrest Productions; www.twitter.com/RyanSeacrest
- Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter; www.twitter.com/biz
- Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco; www.twitter.com/padmasree
- Jon Wheatley, Co-founder of DailyBooth.com; www.dailybooth.com/jon
- Randi Zuckerberg, Director of Marketing, Facebook; www.facebook.com/Randi