... in order to actually make a revolution work you need more than just communications and some dedicated radicals. You need a cause that resonates with ordinary people. Religion plays a factor as you noted but it was basic rights violations that brought about the Arab Spring. Many of the causes I listed in my prior post only resonate within a group of like minded people and will never rise to the level of a revolution because ordinary people just don't care enough about those issues.
You are more optimistic than I am. My reading says the revolutions in both Tunisia and Egypt sprang from reductions in government subsidy of basic food and fuel supplies. And were headed by relatively liberal persons at first, after which they reverted to Muslim fundamentalist radicals.
I read a lot about the French Revolution, and the same pattern is seen there: terrible problems with food supply for YEARS during the revolution, and moderates were quickly overwhelmed (and guillotined) by radicals with the most murderous and ludicrous ideas that were popularized in a blizzard of propaganda leaflets and literally dozens of daily and weekly "newspapers" put out by the radicals. The French Revolution has taught me a lot about Free Speech --- namely, if you broadcast urgings to the population to kill thousands of people, they always, always go do just that. As when the Hutus listened to radio urgings to kill all the Tutsis, and then they chopped them all up with machetes, women, children, their neighbors, everyone. Same with the French Revolution. People become very afraid not to be like the radicals, or they'll be killed and dispossessed, too.
So the internet is really a clearing house for ideas and opinions. As far as being able to pick winners and losers I think that you can see that more clearly if you look at the crowd funding web sites. What works is what resonates. Some radical(s) can bang their personal conviction drum 24*7 for years on end and no one will respond because it doesn't matter one iota to the vast majority who hear and see it.
I don't know -- maybe when people have to put money down, it's different. The Wall Street Journal is saying that this new crowd-sourcing thing is funding pretty much everything. Some of it doesn't work, or is bad, I bet. I'm watching it ----
I think the Mob is very powerful, and very easily led. And that's what we have going on right now with the radicals who understand and control public opinion and public shaming on the Internet.