Denise was right. When we argued over the importance of Facebook and other social media networking sites like Twitter awhile back, I poo-pooed them as fads and a waste of time. I admit being completely out to lunch on this, and since have mended my ways.
This is the new wave, and still a fad, but that's because some very important people in a wide variety of fields are always the first adopters. If you want easy access to trend setters, you've got to be on Facebook and Twitter. And there are others for sure.
As proof, read these excerpts from this weeks BusinessWeek magazine called Beyond Blogs: What Business Needs to Know.
Beyond Blogs: Business Week May 22, 2008, The Future of Tech
Three years ago our cover story showcased the phenomenon. A lot has changed since then
by Stephen Baker and Heather Green
Excerpts from the story:
"While only a small slice of the population wants to blog, a far larger swath of humanity is eager to make friends and contacts, to exchange pictures and music, to share activities and ideas.
"The potential for both better and worse is huge, and it's growing—and since 2005 the technologies involved extend far beyond blogs. So our first fix is to lose "blogs" from our headline. The revised title: "Social Media Will Change Your Business."
"Which top executives are embracing social media? Sun Microsystems (JAVA) chief executive officer Jonathan I. Schwartz is a blogger. What's he up to? IBM (IBM) set up its own social network for employees, Beehive. It has 30,000 employees on it. We should definitely give them a call.
"An estimated 1 million folks are on the Twitter service now. It's a small number, but it includes lots of influential voices, especially in tech.
"Over the past three years, tech and media companies have been opening up their checkbooks for these properties. Google gobbled up YouTube for $1.65 billion; NewsCorp (NWS) bought MySpace for $588 million; and Microsoft (MSFT) bought a pricey slice of Facebook that put a $15 billion valuation on the company. Venture firms, meanwhile, have been racing to fund socres of social media startups.
"For many of them, the business plan remains blurry. Even giants like MySpace are struggling to figure out the financials.
"Even if the bubble bursts—and we predict it will—the power of social media to transform our businesses and society will only grow."
To make their point, they've also used video clips and podcasts, clearly demonstrating how the Web is evolving "old media" publishing. The article ends with two predictions from Jeff Jarvis and Ariana Huffington worth reading.
Denise is also right about using all this driving traffic back to your blog. The whole point of all of this is extending your reach, getting known, and ultimately, getting clients and growing your business.
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