The protests in Iran are both fascinating and scary to watch. Although Twitter has just recently hit the mainstream (with everyone from John Stewart to Conan O’Brien bagging on the service), the Iranian elections remind me of a good book I read a while ago: Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. The book is a primer on how web technologies interact with human behavior in the real world. For example, Shirky discusses how Twitter has been used by other political dissidents and how technology facilitated the creation of flash mobs in Eastern Europe. The Iranian situation is just the latest in a long line of these examples.
UPDATE: Evidently Shirky has already weighed-in on Iran.
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