Twenty years after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, another historic moment took place today when South Africa became the first African nation to host the Football World Cup. While people from around the world flock to the country for a month of scintillating football, those at home will be able to get closer to the action and the players than ever before.

With an unprecedented volume of social media outlets and initiatives from Twitter feeds to Facebook fan pages, viral videos to mobile apps and more, this year’s World Cup is fast becoming a social media showcase.

Almost any site that even mentions football has embraced social media efforts from blogs to live streams to mobile apps. Even still, new initiatives are launched daily, such as Foursquare’s partnership with CNN to create two new World Cup badges and more than 100 viewing parties taking place across the globe. Even the Brazilian striker Kaka is connecting with fans via his Twitter account!

With this many tools on offer, there’s no excuse for anyone not to enjoy the greatest sporting tournament on earth.

Samson and Delilah is a new film from director Warwick Thornton, set around the lives of two young Aboriginals in a small settlement in central Australia.

Thornton, himself an Aboriginal, beautifully crafts an evocative piece, largely played out in silence but with deeper resounding messsages. The film touches on many of the issues that have blighted Aboriginal communities in the modern age including solvent abuse. Beneath the surface it provides an insight into the reality of life for many Aboriginals, and food for thought on the origins of their suffering.

The effects of the Aboriginals displacement from their traditional environment is seldom reported. Communities rife with alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and social disorder are common across northern Australia. Displaced from their traditional lands and given large state handouts (in return for the mining operations on their tribal lands), many have turned to alcohol to seek refuge from the world they live in.

That this film finds a glimmer of hope in the end is truly remarkable.

Tweets from micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter are being used by the US Geological Survey (USGS) to get instant public reaction to earthquakes.

In a report today on BBC News, the agency revealed how they are trawling peoples tweets to find out what people felt during a tremor – whether there was a lot of shaking in their area or not.
There are big spikes in Twitter traffic immediately following a quake and the USGS believes emergency responders might find the information useful.

“It is a speed versus accuracy issue,” explained Dr Paul Earle.

“Twitter messages start coming out in the seconds after an earthquake whereas, depending of the region, scientifically derived information can take 2-20 minutes”.