Social Media NZ Weekly Wrap-up: Our hearts are with you Japan
Just weeks after Christchurch's devastating earthquake, another huge quake hit just off the coast of Japan. The 5th biggest recorded quake of all time, coming in at a magnitude of 8.9. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were affected by this and the team here wants to encourgage you all to help out in anyway you can, as we will be. Here are links to some respected organisations we know are working on the relief effort. As with the Christchurch quake, it's safest to give to these larger, recognized bodies to avoid accidentally supporting scammers or hoax charities who will inevitably pop up over the coming weeks.1) American Red Cross2) Save The Children3) Mercy Corps4) Medical Teams International 5) Global Giving6) World VisionLike we said, do make sure you do your due diligence when donating, at times like this emotion can be easily exploited, so make sure to double check the organization you are donating to. Social Media has played another vital role in the Japan Earthquake. I know I have been going on like a broken record about how Twitter is fast becoming the premier real-time information platform, but I can't stress enough how these globally significant events are showing it to be a legitimate communication tool for the masses. It's showing itself to be a tool that unifies people as well.This week the tech, digital and entertainment come together in a huge event in Austin, Texas, called South by South West. This is an event that features pretty prominently in the calendars of many techy-types and trend-spotters (and a few old hippies and musicians). We'll be bringing you lots of the interesting news coming out the ten gallon hat state over the next few days.We saw the iPad 2 released to the wild this week and, like every year, thousands queued across the U.S to take an iPad 2 home. Good to see Apple still has that mind control, I mean magic, over it's consumers.Top 4 Social Media NZ Posts: 
1) India’s social media revolution brings in older users 
2) Understanding the secret life of message boards 
3) Twitter Captures Japan Quake Horror 
4) inPulse Watch: This device is just soo Mission Impossible News you may have missed this week:* Twitter gives the finger to Twitter devs* Foursquare and American Express teams up to take loyalty programs to the next level* Google to launch new social network called Circles at South by South West* Gowalla teams up with CNN to take location and news reporting to a new level Social Media Win of the week:
This social media win of the week goes to L'oreal for teaming up with local saloons to help them market on Facebook. What does everyone think about this idea? Share your thoughts in the comment section below[Story first mention on Mashable]Video of the week: The imagination of Apple fans is truly amazing, you know you've got great brand evangelist when you see them making slick videos about your product like this one [Video first posted on The Next Web]