A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Friday, February 18, 2011

We've Heard of This Facebook Thing the Young Folk Like; Sounds Like a Good Place for Press Releases

Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is, whatever else you may say about it, trying to understand the new world in Egypt. Unfortunately, it's sounding more and more like one's aging parents who keep using 50's hipster slang to sound like they're in tune with the times. Its use of SMS messaging to send out uninformative press releases has drawn a lot of complaints, so now they have gone and started up a Facebook page, to show they get it. Unfortunately, they don't. (Website in Arabic.) It's more like, "Hey, now that we're hip to this groovy new thing the young folk like, let's use it to send out what we were sending out on the fax machine."

Points for effort, but a misfire so far. Via Zeinobia.

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