Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The State of Global Social Networking

Oracle very generously sends me a copy of their magazine "Profit"; the following was on one of the opening pages.



To make a short story even shorter - worldwide "58% of folks don't know what social networking is" For sure this refers to online systems. Almost everyone know that being socially polite with that good looking group of workers two floors above is at least a potentially sweet move. Right?

The overall interest in online social networks is fading fast for about one third of users. Actually not too great a surprise when you think about it particularly where the current master sources (referred to) are Facebook and MySpace. As humans a lot of us ultimately seem to be looking for face-to-face memories that include smells, tastes, physical surprises. It's OK to use something like Facebook to start a relationship with that great group two floors above but really, one day, we want to sit near the campfire on the beach together and talk about everything.

As part of history i.e. this sounds true, people originally didn't quite know what to do with telephones. Certainly stock trading and medical emergency were easy to accept. But if I haven't been writing to that dumb relative why in heck will I begin speaking to him through this thin copper wire!? Now it's hard to imagine a day without a cell phone!

Similarly we are on the brink of some truly wonderful SNA changes. And it's going to be great ...

1 comment:

Annalise said...

Sitting near the campfire with people, discussing life sounds nice. However, people are still going to use social networks as a modern way of getting to that point with relationships.

Thanks,

Annalise
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