This week I am going to focus on why people are so interested in social networks and what is appealing about being able to have immediate access to friends and family. As human beings we are all interested in being social and being connected to other people who share the same interests, feeling, morals, ideas and so on. It is just part of out DNA. As we have progressed over time the way we communicate and stay social as a species has to. People stayed connected via letters, during the 1700s, via Telegraph in the 1800s, by phone in the 1900s, and now with the advent of the internet we have found a whole new avenue to connect and stay in touch with people: Social Media, and telecommunication tools, such as Skype and oovoo. These service allow people who are half-way around the world sometimes to communicate as if they are in the same room. This type of immediacy is why people are so drawn to Social Media. They can see if their friends from high school are online and start a video chat with them and be able to catch up "in person." Or they can start and Instant Message (IM) conversation, which is just as immediate.
Social Media outlets like Facebook, and Google+ realize that people have the desire to have immediate access to the people they care about and are capitalizing on that. Over time things will only progress further in this direction, leading to even more immediate form of communication. Holographic transmitters perhaps?
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
What Defines Social Media
What defines social media? Is it Facebook and Twitter? Or does it encompass much more than that, like LinkedIn and Tumblr. Or do those stand alone in their own categories? These questions are the reason that social media is such a tricky subject to get a grip on. We think of social media as part of our everyday lives, something that we depend on for news, communication and even de-stressing from work and school. But to people who do not use the internet for things other than email, they find social media intrusive and self-inflated. All these things go into what defines social media.
On the one hand people feel a need to communicate, to interact, and to organize. The Occupy Wall Street movement and the various rebellions in middle eastern countries have relied heavily on twitter so that they may organize and communicate effectively. This argument shows social media as a champion for the people. But other arguments shed light on social media that seems to disgrace the tech companies. For instance Facebook has rights to all the pictures you post. They can go and sell those pictures as stock photos to advertising firms.(http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/07/facebook-can-use-your-pictures-for-ads-no-permission-required.html) Many feel that this is an infringement of privacy and copyright laws and are not too happy with Facebook.
There is no set definition of social media but as it continues to evolve it will continue to define itself and assert it's prominence on the web.
On the one hand people feel a need to communicate, to interact, and to organize. The Occupy Wall Street movement and the various rebellions in middle eastern countries have relied heavily on twitter so that they may organize and communicate effectively. This argument shows social media as a champion for the people. But other arguments shed light on social media that seems to disgrace the tech companies. For instance Facebook has rights to all the pictures you post. They can go and sell those pictures as stock photos to advertising firms.(http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/07/facebook-can-use-your-pictures-for-ads-no-permission-required.html) Many feel that this is an infringement of privacy and copyright laws and are not too happy with Facebook.
There is no set definition of social media but as it continues to evolve it will continue to define itself and assert it's prominence on the web.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)