Continuing my previous post: How technological companies are affecting the Middle East...

This week the King of Saudi Arabia set up a Facebook page to connect with the people better. Despite Facebook being the cause of a lot of the civil unrest in the Middle East these past weeks, Saudi Arabia set it up and posted phone and fax numbers. The page will not allow posting, to prevent a "Facebook" protest, but it will be up to date with new information and contact information.

I think, perhaps, the motive of such a page can be to gain favor with the people and prevent the spread of revolt here. If the people have a sufficient outlet for their problems and this outlet is Facebook, at least externally it will look like the Saudi Arabian government is more liberal. Imagine you are from Saudi Arabia and you hear about all the protests over the lack of internet and your own government encourages it's use.

Google: Effecting the Revolt in Egypt...

We all read about what happened and is continuing to happen in Egypt as the people revolt. I, like many of you, read mainstream news sites and might only hear about the political aspects of the revolt. Interestingly, the tech community has a lot to talk about as well.

Google this week prepared to set up a text-to-tweet service so the people in Egypt can communicate with the outside world without internet. I think this is a perfect "tell" on our world now: how corporations and businesses effect the world. Here, Google, and not a foreign government, is going to provide the ability and route for the Egyptian people to communicate. The idea is that the phones are still in service and you can text Google numbers and they will tweet it. Take a look:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/31/google-and-twitter-hook-up-to-allow-egyptians-to-tweet/