Monday, May 14, 2012

Socially Mediated

social mediaSocial media relates to a variety of things to different people but is there scope for diversity? If you want to bookmark websites regarding your project, photos of your recent trip and summaries on your endeavours where can you go? Evidently facebook comes loud and clear to meet those points but are they trying to be all things to all people? After all they are now large capitalisation entities and shareholders who want to rake in the dividends from advertising income.

Talking about revenue bring in cash but more importantly your profile. Yes you read correctly marketing heavy weights are always on the lookout for ways to quantify your buying pattern and social media sites are the main source of information for that. So for a charge you can land a snapshot on how many times something was posted that matches your favourite keyword.

So the issue of privacy is the one that gets levied the most against the social media fad. But is it a fad or is it to stay? It is one thing to have a presence towards your relatives and acquaintances but what about if your ex, your employer, someone across the street starts to spy on you? Introducing Social Buzz a facebook look-alike without the heavy footprint.

The needs of an online community are fairly simple. Leave an article, bookmark a web page, upload an album of related pictures or a clip, track a discussion or an event through keywords and that's basically it. Certain social media platforms are growing through invites only - others allow any person to sign-up. Some entice you to run through your inbox and blast an invite to any email at hand - a crude spamming method if there was one.

The next problem with facebook is the ever increasing growth of apps that try to tag on the vast pool of connected friends and weave a web of intrigue. It began with games, then birthday reminders now job hunting networks and whatever will follow. No wonder we all know someone we would dearly connect with but cannot because they run away for cover from the social media landscape.

Just like in the past you would pursue in private now you can do that offline. No I don't mean going back to the old fashioned postal service. I mean switching to a less popular social media system off the beaten track.

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