People soshalize. They don't care how it's spelled. They just do it.
It’s fitting that a “Social Discovery” site holds people on the page longer than Facebook. In today’s ever-increasingly over-connected virtual world, we are no longer as fascinated with the daily machinations of our friends and family. We have become good at shuffling through pictures of little nephew Timmy sliding into third base with a quick Facebook like or clicking the retweet button when a friend declares their local sushi bar has the best Sake in Long Beach.
Facebook may have the market cornered on social networking with their Timeline, but can theirs jump ahead to the future? I think not, but social news site Reddit has Facebook blown out of the water with the Reddit Timeline.
I’ve noticed something in my thinking after spending some time on Pinterest the last few months. It’s subtle, but “The Pinterest Effect” is starting to get to me.
When one thinks of TED, they normally picture the brainiest speakers on important topics filling the world with 15-minute to 2-hour presentations that are utterly profound. They don’t normally expect talking bear rugs or Chipotle commercials, but that’s exactly what the crowd at the Long Beach, CA, TED2012 Conference on Tuesday.
Make no mistake. Pinterest may be a pretty interface full of recipes, do-it-yourself tips, and pictures of cuddly animals (what social site doesn’t have cute animals anymore?), but the end game is all business.
Every year, I ask the same question around the end of December. Every year, I answer my own question by saying that people are going to eventually learn the difference between going directly to a website by typing a domain name into a browser and typing the same thing into a search engine like Google.
It’s not just network marketers or Amway reps who need contacts. Nearly every business that sells a product or a service can benefit from having a well-managed, properly updated virtual rolodex, but so many people blow it off as something that’s not for them.
This is a mistake.
When the patent laws were first written, those who drafted them had no idea what they would eventually yield. Today, innovations in technology have exponentially increased the quantity and variety of patents filed every day. While it’s good that companies and individuals continue to come up with new ideas, the system itself and those who are willing to take advantage of it are hurting the general progress of technology.
Social media often gets blamed for bad things that happen in relationships. We now have the opportunity to find old girlfriends and boyfriends on Facebook, make new relationships on Tagged.com, and see things even have random encounters on, well, sites that we wouldn’t link to from Soshable. There’s another side to the story – social media and advancing technologies can be used to keep relationships going, particularly long-distance ones.
For some, Facebook is easy. As a social media society, we’ve abandoned our privacy, our ability to speak in complete sentence or use complete words, and our tendency towards any form of introversion. We want to encapsulate our moments, days, and lives into quick status updates that are intended to inform others of who we are and why we do what we do.
