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HISTORICAL EXAMPLES [ 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2003 ]

Examples of flash mobs from the book Smart Mobs:

November 30, 1999:
was the date of the "Battle of Seattle" in which swarms of protestors demonstrating against the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle organized their efforts by mobile phones, web sites, laptops, and handheld computers. The participants in this demonstration were people of all different interests who would not have been able to coordinate such a loosely constructed effort without the used of "a mobile, many-to-many, real-time communication network." -Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs
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September 2000:
in Britain: angry consumers were infuriated by the high cost of gasoline, so they organized in groups at selected service stations to prevent fuel deliveries. The coordinated their efforts using mobile phones, SMS, e-mail from laptops, and CB radios in taxi cabs.
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January 20, 2001:
President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines fell to a smart mob of over a million Filipinos, residents of Manila, showed up after receiving waves of text messages. Tens of thousands of people showed up at the designated location within an hour of the first text messages sent. This protest broke out after an impeachment trial to remove Estrada from office was suddenly ended by Senators who were linked with the President. It was not more than seventy-five minutes after the end of that trial that over 20,000 citizens showed up at Epifanio de los Santas Avenue, abbreviated simply as "Edsa."
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In all of these examples, the strategies relied on its participants remaining dispersed until mobile communications requested them to converge on their specific target all at once. Also all three of these examples of Smart Mobs are examples of non-violent political protests. Other more uses for Smart Mob technology exist as well. Military groups around the world, including the United States, have used "netwar strategy and swarming tactics." The United States and its allies introduced small teams of special forces that were wirelessly linked and able to call in increasingly accurate aircraft and missile strikes in Afghanistan. This is an example of the U.S.'s use of netwar, a term created by two analysts for the RAND Corporation, John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt who recognized that the use of technologies and a decentralized organizational structure was quickly becoming an effective force against difficult political situations.

Examples from WiredNews.com:

June 17, 2003:
Hundreds of people gathered at a particular rug at Macy's in New York City and told the salesperson that they all lived in a warehouse together. They said they were looking for a "love rug" to play on and they only made purchases as a group. They then discussed the pros and cons of the rug for about ten minutes and quickly left the store. The group was organized through a series of forwarded e-mails that had them meet at a local bar to receive there instructions for the event just before it was supposed to take place. One of the mob's organizers described the event as "a mob, for no reason. That's it." - WiredNews.com June 19, 2003
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July 2, 2003:
Over 250 people gathered at New York's Grand Central Station, but were met by a great deal of police officers. The mob then moved next door to the Grand Hyatt hotel and went to the second floor where they all stood on the mezzanine shoulder to shoulder for a few minutes before bursting into "thunderous, screaming applause for 15 seconds." They then quickly dispersed as police cars flooded the scene. This mob was organized by the same group that organized the "love rug" event at a New York City Macy's only a month earlier. The New York City "Mob Project" is an invite only affair that requires participants to know someone who is on the e-mail mailing list. The participants find out about events through forwarded e-mails. - WiredNews.com July, 5, 2003
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