An example of the power of social networking

Source: "Breast cancer awareness goes viral on Facebook . . . with bra color updates," Brigid Schulte, The Washington Post, January 9, 2010.

(T)he people at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, who were stunned to find themselves the beneficiaries of a Web phenomenon they didn't begin to understand. At the start of Friday, they had exactly 135 fans on their Facebook page. By 5:30 in the evening, they had 135,000.

Somebody, somewhere -- no one knows who or where -- got the bright idea of getting women to reveal the colors of their bras on social networking sites. The fad boomed, was linked to support for the fight against breast cancer, and as a result there was a huge boost in fandom for breast cancer websites and a modest increase in donations for breast cancer research.