Cricket Diplomacy And Loose Egyptian Snakes

First things first.

India and Pakistan are currently in the midst of a semi-final match in the Cricket World Cup 2011 (not to mention a little cricket diplomacy.)

I’m pretty sure life as we know it in the sub-continent has come to a screeching halt.  Just in case you’re wondering.

You can follow the match on The Guardian.  I’d try to explain to you what the score is, but I’m entirely fearful I’d make a cultural blunder from which I might spend years trying to recover with my friends in the region.

I do know the match just went into an innings break.  In case that’s useful information.  I suspect that, not unlike commercial breaks during our Super Bowl, a few hundred million toilets were just flushed at close to the same time.

In any case, that’s not the only news of the day, although it is arguably the most important.

I also just heard a bombshell in the social media milieu, that Salesforce.com just acquired social media monitoring firm Radian6 for a cool $276M U.S. in cash and $50M in stock.

This from coverage on TechCrunch. (Read this post to learn more about IBM’s own recent announcement in the social media monitoring and measurement realm with its IBM Coremetrics Social announcement.)

To which I say, let the consolidation begin!  A garden variety of social media firms, particularly those that operate in the world of the enterprise (as opposed to the pure consumer-facing plays), are becoming rich targets for purchase.

Enterprise analytics for social media activity are a particularly fertile sector as companies around the globe attempt to try and understand and discern consumer behavior online.

It’s important for said companies to learn from Twitterers and Facebookers everywhere.

Even the Bronx Zoos Cobra!

If you haven’t followed this latest Twitter phenomenon, you’re missing out on one of the latest wonders of the Web and the greatest Twitterer since the fake BP PR account.

The backstory: An Egyptian cobra recently disappeared from the Bronx Zoo, only to reappear in the guise of “@BronxZoosCobra” on Twitter.

His Tweets are sharp and clever.  A most recent example? “At the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Temple of Dendur really kicks some asp. #snakeonthetown”

Funny! And me likey the hashtag.

No word yet on whether the Egyptian snake is rooting for India or Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup.

Which is all the more reason to add @BronxZoosCobra ID to your Twitter follow list.