Credit: LittleBoxofIdeas.com

Haiti remained a trending topic on the social web as the focus slowly shifted from disaster to rescue and aid.

Numerous fundraisers are ramping up, from George Clooney’s Hope for Haiti Now to grassroots efforts such as Calgary’s yyc4haiti.com.

Meanwhile, DigitalJournal.com reported Canada was attempting to take a lead role in Haiti’s reconstruction:

“Canadian Ambassador Gilles Rivard met with Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Marc Bellerive

to discuss Canada’s role in Haiti’s reconstruction … The Canadian government wants to be assured it would be in charge of a project to build temporary buildings to house displaced Haitian ministries. In addition, Canada wants responsibility for assigning experts to help with reconstruction.”

Speaking of reconstruction, NBC’s bungling efforts to rebuild their late night line-up took center stage this week.

As @jodiecongirl wryly noted “Oh the irony. Conan’s last show will likely end up broadcasting at 12:05 (or later) if the Hope for Haiti telethon runs long. #teamcoco”

The Washington Post pointed out O’Brien’s departure was unlike any other firing in history:

“The legions of diehard O’Brien fans who have spent the past couple of weeks unleashing their outrage on Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and, on Monday, the streets of four of America’s largest cities aren’t ready to let go of their bitterness — or their beloved Coco — just yet … Social-networking crazes tend to come and go with the swiftness of a Twitter trending topic, but the pro-Coco campaign seems to have touched a genuine nerve, one that goes beyond mere loyalty to a man…”

While fans bemoaned Conan’s fate, Huffington Post reported the “queen of daytime” was ready to interview O’Brien’s nemesis, Jay Leno.

“Winfrey said on her talk show Friday that she was going to Los Angeles for a ‘one-on-one’ interview with Leno to air on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ on Thursday.”

Hopefully he doesn’t want her show too.

As David Letterman cracked, Jay always claims his innocence “but somehow he always shows up at the scene of the crime.”

Speaking of the scene of the crime, @Mashable reports on a British man who made a poor choice by tweeting a “joke” about blowing up an airport.

“You know that old adage about not saying ‘bomb’ on an airplane? It turns out that it extends to Twitter as well … a South Yorkshire man was arrested last week after joking on Twitter that he would blow an airport ‘sky high’ if his flight was delayed.”

From fake bomb threats to financial hostages, investment blog SeekingAlpha.com, quoted US President Barack Obama taking on US banks: “Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail…”

But SeekingAlpha contributor Felix Salmon questioned whether this was just populist rhetoric:

“In private … a very different message is being sent about how much smaller the Obama administration wants America’s biggest banks to be. The answer: no smaller than they are now — even after the wave of panic-induced M&A at the height of the financial crisis.”

Taking social media to new heights was – who else? – NASA. From Mashable.com:

“New software aboard the International Space State has made it possible to tweet live from space, and Astronaut Timothy Creamer wasted no time in sending the first digital message.”

@Astro_TJ tweeted ”Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! More soon, send your ?s”

Bet that befuddles location-based services.

Finally, several social media platforms rolled out new features this week; Facebook added a “via” function that is much like Twitter’s retweet; they also added a number of e-mail

notification conveniences and an “identify a stranger” function; and Twitter launched location-

based trending topics, so we can know what’s hot on the space station or in Saskatoon.

As usual, send me your feedback on Twitter at @dblacombe or via e-mail doug@communicatto.com.

Doug Lacombe is president of communicatto.com, a digital marketing, investor and public relations agency.

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