This discovery is about 6 months old but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t fit the profile of Cool Stuff Online. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader in exile, was planning on attending Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Inaugural Peace Lecture in Cape Town, South Africa on 8th October 2011 but if you can believe it he couldn’t get a visa.

So, to make sure that he paid his respects to the apartheid activist and Nobel Peace prize winner (1984),  the Dalai Lama signed up to Google Plus, a social network, and set up a hangout so he could have a video conference with the Archbishop during his interview.
Apparently the Dalai Lama signed up to Google+ the same day he used it, now he has 1,332,444 users who have added his Holiness to their circles and he has another 2.5 million followers on Twitter and more than 2 million LIKES on facebook.

I can only speak for myself but I think this is a pretty good use of social media and the free tools that Google offers and what better way to spread positive energy. And I’m sure Google+ didn’t mind the free publicity either 🙂

The full video hangout goes for 64 minutes but here is a highlights reel from the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu’s conversation: