Tanner Hobin

This is a very in-depth study on the impact of Social Media across the globe. The statistics are amazing. It seems as though video and personal blogging is leading the way, and the Asia-Pacific region is showing the most growth.

The study is segmented by Waves in which each segment signifies a number of survey submissions within a single month a year. Wave 1 included 15 countries, 7,500 users and was completed in September 2005. Wave 2 included 21 countries, 10,000 users and was completed in June 2007. Wave 3 included 29 countries, 17,000 users and was completed in March 2008. Though in my opinion the sample sizes seem small the validity of the data appears legit.
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I follow two local news agencies that use twitter very effectively to spread the latest news. So I decided to search twitter for other agency profiles I’d like to receive updates from. Lo and behold I found a Twitter profile for CNBC with what appeared as a subtle ransom message:

Dear pleasantcreature@gmail.com,
Your personalized Cease and Desist letter is on its way.

What happens when the pursuit of social media stardom defeats the purpose of a social media site?

Have you ever met someone that used foul language so much that it essentially loses its meaning? The same effect appears to be happening across social sites. Certain users are Digging, Stumbling, and Twittering everything under the sun, and quite frankly it’s getting obnoxious. And it all appears to be for nothing more than increasing the popularity of a user account. What really bothers me about this is that it dilutes the content.

A friend of mine, Andrew Nagy said it best, “Social media is only beneficial the way any kind of social interaction is…moderation. if you’re at a party and one guy keeps walking up to every person and asking questions and being overly friendly, that guy usually gets beat up, or at least gets beer poured on him. So the moral of the story is, when you’re interacting with social media, don’t be ‘that guy’”.

So in the style of Mr. Tony Sinclair, “What’s true for shrimp cocktail is also true for social media…always in moderation.”