Social Networking and #AIDS2010

There’s a flurry of action this week as we await the start of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (#AIDS2010) in Vienna, Austria, next week. I wish I was able to attend, but am glad that many of my clients have the opportunity to go. The conference is held every two years, and is always an eye-opening and innovative event. The theme of this year's conference is “Rights Here, Right Now,” and the objectives of the event are many. Follow the conference on Twitter and on Flickr.

What I've seen thus far on the social networking scene has been interesting, and hopefully as this week progresses, we’ll see more initiatives cropping up:

@UNAIDS says: If you're tweeting from #AIDS2010 join this Google group for tweeps at the conference: http://ow.ly/2ajFe.

Our friends at the Global Health Council will be tweeting (@globalhealthorg), blogging, and also participating in a number of events. Share your own events/news through them for extended reach.

There’s already an extensive set of nice videos on YouTube, which is great to see and provides rich coverage.

The Kaiser Family Foundation offers a nice embeddable widget that will feed their daily news and live video coverage of the event.  Organizations can place this widget on their own sites for their particular online audiences by copying code here. 

Facebook is promoting an historic rally led by an all-time favorite, Annie Lennox.  She will sing in downtown Vienna July 20 and demonstrate the crowd’s commitment to protecting human rights and stopping the spread of HIV.  Youth can also join a youth-focused Facebook group, and nearly 8,000 people have ‘liked’ the conference Facebook page. Hop on! 

I do hope groups will encourage participation from afar by including things like Twitter Q&A or Twitterfall displays during the live event! One Tweet today asks, 'Is there wireless at #aids2010?'...I would hope so!!

Those of us left behind will see plenty of remarks like this on Twitter: ”#aids2010 is finally here - heading to airport and so excited! Follow all the action @aids2010”.  Wishing I were boarding a plane bound for Vienna too!  But alas, at least I’ll get my Twitter fill.

Be sure to follow along with me and the on-site event participats in what promises to be another exciting week at the XVIII International AIDS Conference.