Picking up on the [Google] chatter gives us another powerful story

As if to reinforce the point of my last blog [Citizen journalists, their audience and us], I came by the emotive story of asylum seekers Samia and Farid Boumerdassi on Tuesday by being a member of a Google chat group - for a housing estate in Wrexham of all things, and with just 30 members.

As I write this we think the couple and their three children - aged six, 10 and 11 - have been deported after they were taken to Tinsley House Immigration Removal Centre, near Gatwick Airport.

They were woken at their Caia Park home in a night-time raid by Border Agency officials on Monday.

I picked up on the story on Tuesday in my daily email from the chat group [the email gives an overview of that day's web chat]. I forwarded the tip to colleagues and, to cut a long story short, we heard that the Boumerdassis were a well loved family on the estate who took part in community life and that a candle-lit vigil was being held for them.

We even got to chat with Mr Boumerdassi in Tinsley House last night [listen again 2hours 12mins into BBC Radio Wales' Good Evening Wales programme].

And so another story made it on to bbc.co.uk, radio and Wales Today TV news simply by being a member and contributor to another online social media site.

PS. Don't be a lurker on such chat groups, you've got to participate in the conversation and be part of the group. You have to give - don't just take!