Tuesday, March 8, 2011

H2H - the real social networks

By now you all should know what Social Media is.
“Why Hayden, it’s Facebook and Twitter of course, right?”.... Wrong!
Social Media is the use of technology (and specifically the Internet) to connect people with people. This creates new and exciting ways for them to meet, interact and engage with each other.
Note: Yes, this does include revolutions!
Specific social networks facilitate this connectivity
  • Facebook : personal
  • Linkedin: business
  • Twitter: short (& trivial)
These networks no longer make it about the technology; they make it about the people, their relationships and their behaviour.
That's why the advertising revenue of Facebook is growing so quickly, is because that's where people are these day.. hanging out, chatting with friends, throwing sheep (BTW: does anyone still do that?), etc. And one reason Facebook is valued so highly (currently $50 billion) is because of that ad revenue.

So next time someone claims that social networks are worth so much is because they have so much great functionality or because brands are there... my suggestion is to tell them its because that's where the humans are. And humans engaging with other humans is what social networks are really about.

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