Heather Lynn's Anti-Wachovia Facebook Page, How it relates to group activites

An Old Dominion University student, Heather Lynn, was frustrated with Wachovia for charging a fee when trying to use her Visa card to donate to Haiti, a fee other banks and credit card companies had been waiving. She began venting this frustration through a Facebook group entitled "Wachovia = Fail"

The three stages of group activities Shirky notes are Sharing, Cooperation, and Collective Action...

In the context of Lynn's story, the initial creation of the Facebook group, "Wachovia = Fail", takes care of sharing, the first stage.

The second stage of cooperation was accomplished when people accepted this request, and then invited their friends to the Facebook group as well.

Collective action, the third step, was when the members began to not only continue to spread friend suggestions for the page, but began commenting on it as well, for both members and visitors of the group to see. They all were commenting and complaining about Wachovia's practices together, with common frustration and understanding in mind. Wachovia must have felt pressured by all the attention, especially when digital outlets like the Huffington Post began to cover the story, and it appears Wachovia attempted to quell this negative attention earlier rather than later, and changed it's policy regarding fee donations, perhaps part of an attempt to silence any more criticisms that could be highlighted in the Facebook page.