The Al Qaeda Community

Is Al Qaeda working on a web start-up? Recent events seem to indicate that Osama bin Laden may be sneaking around Silicon Valley looking for some seed money.

The organization already has a robust web video release schedule, as we have seen time and time again. But in these days of Facebook and MySpace, investors love to see some way of involving your community in the content of your new website (so you know they are there and will enjoy your ads). Al Qaeda is not stupid, and they are starting to incorporate web-savvy community elements into their operations. Just today, Al Qaeda number 2 Al-Zawahiri released a statement answering questions people had posted on Al Qaeda websites. Journalists, followers, random people from the street could all ask questions. We’re looking for a transcript, but here is a story with some sample answers (they may have to work on their transparency and honesty “Al Qaeda does not kill innocents”).

But here’s the kicker, from an older story in Der Spiegel: “Three years ago, al-Qaida’s Saudi Arabian wing called on supporters to send e-mails with proposals for terrorist attacks, which would later be reviewed by terror leaders and matched up with the people best suited to carry them out.” Crowd-sourcing, user-generated content, curating. Genius. Look for some sort of Al Qaeda mobile platform and a daily video show produced out of a cave in Pakistan within the next two months, and a large investment by Microsoft or Google before the end of the year.