Thoughts.com

I recently received this video:

Social Media RevolutionPosted: 17 Jun 2010 07:52 AM PDT
Have you seen this video? It was published on 30 July 2009, and has been viewed 2,015,452 times to date. It reveals some interesting statistics, and I think it’s worth spending a few minutes to watch. (I placed the transcript instead of the link to the You Tube video itself, so to avoid the post getting deleted for "commercial content", apologies...) [my comment about it follows after this transcript]


Is Social Media a Fad?

• Or is it the biggest shift since the industrial revolution?
  
• Welcome to the Revolution
  
• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber baby boomers
  
• 96% of them have joined a social network
  
• Social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web
  
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
  
• Years to reach 50 million users
  
• Radio: 38 years
  
• TV: 13 years
  
• Internet: 4 years
  
• i Pod: 3 years
  
• Face book added 100 million users in less than 9 months
  
• i Pod Application downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months
  
• If Face book were a country
  
• it would be the world’s 4th largest
  
• yet, China’s Q Zone is larger with over 300 million using their services
  
• 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average,
  
• online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction.
  
• 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
  
• 80% of companies are using Linked In as their primary tool to find employees
  
• The fastest growing segment on Face book is 55-63 year-old females
  
• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have more Twi tt3r followers
  
• than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and Panama
  
• 80% of Twi tt3r usage is on mobile devices
  
• people update anywhere, anytime
  
• Imagine what that means for bad customer experience?
  
• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé
  
• In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on Faceb0ok
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on tw1 tter
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on or kut
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on beb0
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on flikr
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on dig-g
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on My Space
  
• What happens in Vegas stays on You Tube
  
• You Tube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
  
• You Tube has more than 100,000,000 videos
  
• Wiki is an Hawaiian term for Quick
  
• Wiki-pedia has over 13 million articles
  
• Studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica
  
• 78% of these articles are non-English
  
• If you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wiki-pedia, you would earn $156.23
  
• per hour
  
• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
  
• 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily
  
• Word of mouth
  
• World of mouth
  
• 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
  
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
  
• Do you like what they are saying
  
• about your brand?
  
• you better...
  
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and
  
• services than how Go0gle ranks them
  
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
  
• Only 14% trust advertisements
  
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
  
• 90% of people that can Ti Vo ads do
  
• hu lu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
  
• 70% of 18- to 34-year-olds have watched TV on the Web
  
• ...only 33% have ever viewed a show on DVR/Ti Vo
  
• 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video
  
• ...on their phone.
  
• 35% of book sales on Ama-zon are for the Kin-dle
  
• 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
  
• What’s on your mind?
  
• We no longer search for the news, the news finds us...
  
• In the near future we will no longer search for products and services
  
• they will find us via social media
  
• Social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.
  
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Face book
  
• daily
  
• “It’s the economy stupid.” - James Carville, 1992
  
• “It’s a people driven economy stupid.” - Erik Qualman, 2009
  
• Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilby
  
• Listening first, selling second
  
• Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertisers.
  
• Still think social media is a fad?
  
• Welcome to the World of Socialnomics™
  
• Are you ready?

======



I watched it, and here's my take:


Yes, it's a social media revolution, and electronic media means of connecting and interacting - whether it is for entertainment or business - are moving at an ever increasing faster pace. When we were children (we, people in our forties), interacting meant meeting friends at the park and playing soccer, or riding bicycles chasing each other - now, as confirmed by a friend of mine who went on a bus tour with his son and his class - interacting means wearing earphones and exchanging instant messaging with each other on the most popular online social networks. In complete and eerie silence!

I will always remember when – at the end of my school final exams – I was asked by a journalist my thoughts on the advent of computers and the computer era. I replied that computers are useful, but we should rule them, not the other way around. The fact that the journalist then twisted and modified the interview to suit his own needs by publishing, 'The student says computers are great', it's another story. I'm still pondering to whether I should sue, 25 years down the line... 

We are well into a society that has the incommensurable need to share everything, from fleeting emotions to physical actions (proven by the endless i Phone gadgets which notify everyone in real time on the whereabouts of the mobile phone's owner, whether he's entering a shopping mall or stepping into his own bathroom).

Face book founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience that "the age of privacy is over" and that sharing is the norm. Privacy is seen as weird, outcast. I suggest everyone to read Ben Elton's "Blind Faith", a recent science fiction novel which very well portrays the networked society we are moving towards.

In the years gone by, SF writers imagined worlds where robots and computers take over humanity, making them their slaves or wiping humans out completely; it's scary how, without too much fuss or big headlines, this is already happening – with the full approval of humanity themselves.

We are living in the age of now; the old adage 'wake up and smell the roses' has been replaced by 'wake up and smell the coffee' or, worse, 'ground Berocca tablets'; because, boy-oh-boy, the moment you wake up you need to be pumping hard and fast. This modern age is ridden by anxiety, stress, and fast-paced living; a professional is expected to produce work at the speed of the blink of an eye. If – ten or twenty years ago – designing and producing a book could have taken 6 months of research and carefully-crafted artwork, now a designer is expected to do the same in the space of a week or so. Longer than that means losing the client to someone else who can work 'faster' (not necessarily better, but definitely faster).
The everyday mantra uttered in the workplace by clients and management alike is "it's extremely urgent" – said long before any explanation is given about what the job entails. Our bodies and minds were not meant for a fast-paced life; perhaps it will be so in some generations ahead but not now. This type of stress increases the need of seeking psychotherapy help, as well as stimulant tablets to get us going, calming tablets to treat anxiety disorders, and sleeping tablets to make us rest. Stress makes the joy of medical professionals and pharmaceuticals companies, with all them lighting votive candles to the Social Media God – before walking to the bank with our money, that is. Around the world there are more and more cases of people committing suicide because they can't keep up with the pressure, or people in semi-permanent state of clinical depression.
Surely there is something wrong with the overall picture.

Guilty as charge, I also use computers and Internet to run my daily life, so to be able to put food on my table. It doesn't however mean that I agree with it, and happily embrace the new world ideal. Sometimes I flirt with the thought of moving to a secluded spot in Tibet, away from mobile phones and computers.

Trouble is, monks nearby have Internet access, and Go0gle already drove by and mapped the area. 




Feel free to comment if you want, I'd appreciate some (constructive) criticism. Thank you!

Economy experts think the government will have serious problems to deliver.
Uncannily, it's exactly what my local doctor said: "Ya mus' stop drinkin' alcohol, or there will be serious problems to de liver."

I can squeeze a nickel 'til it cries.
(Myscha Theriault)

This made me laugh big time! :-)

“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
Woody Allen

Does anyone know what or who "Maimesk" (or perhaps "Mymesk") means?