LJWorld.com weblogs Kelly Gibson
Posted
by Klgibson
September 8, 2009 at 12:35 p.m.
Facebook and Twitter have taken over! And I'm following.
It is a hot July afternoon and I am running errands in my air-conditioner-less car. The light turns red and I curse as I slow to a stop, I'm already sweaty and ready to get home. I pull out my phone while I wait for the light to change. I open the Twitter application and a couple of friends have tweeted since I last checked. "TMZ reports Michael Jackson is dead. Can anyone else confirm?!?" reads one tweet. Wait, what? The light changes and I switch on the radio.They report Jackson had a heart attack but little else is known at that time. When I reach my destination, I whip out my handy, dandy phone to do some more research (my mother will be pleased that I waited until I was no longer operating a vehicle...) and discover that TMZ--and my Twitter-savvy friend--was correct. An American Icon had passed away suddenly. It was a moment I will remember for the rest of my life. And I heard it first on Twitter.
It is amazing to me that within my lifetime the Internet has gone from a military tool to an everyday necessity for the average person; a living, breathing part of American Culture. I am connected everywhere I go to endless amounts of information. I admit right now I am the proud owner of an iPhone and love it more than life, at times. It could be said that I am, indeed, addicted to information.
The Internet is so pervasive that all lifestyles have been influenced. An article (http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/2009-09-03-early-shopping-bargains_N.htm) in USA Today reported that research that once happened on car lots is now happening online. Trips are planned, hotels booked via Web sites; textbooks, clothes, electronics, services: all purchased on the Internet. This is a phenomenon not at all foreign to my generation. We are a generation of convenience and immediacy. So it isn't such a stretch that we embrace social marketing Web sites like Facebook and Twitter as viable sources of information and services. In fact, we prefer it. I can price shop from the comfort of my own home. So advertisers and community members must adapt to this Web-based culture or order to stay competitive. It is a strange, faceless, convenient shift and traditional businesses feel compromised in the face of technological change. As discussed in a posting on the NewsCloud Blog (http://blog.newscloud.com/2009/08/evolution-of-community-newspapers-in-a-facebook-age.html) titled "The Evolution of Community Newspapers in the Age of Twitter and Facebook," the world is overloaded with information and news providers have to keep up. Community journalism must advance with the online culture. Of the last 10 Web sites you've visited, how many have advertised their Facebook pages or requested you follow them on Twitter? I'd guess most, if not all, of them. And it's working. Social marketing Web sites are incredibly influential. In a recent article published in Independent School, author Lorrie Jackson describes a situation where students base attendance to schools on the school's Facebook page and comments. The Minnesota Daily (http://apps.facebook.com/mndaily/) offers points as a reward for users who participate in the Facebook community by posting stories, sharing stories with friends and inviting friends to the application. Communities grow and learn, the organization is paid through advertisements. It sounds like a traditional business model to me, simply the technology has changed.
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devobrun (anonymous) says…
The difference between traditional business and internet business like facebook and twitter is that the latter is paid to supply information to a business. That is, twitter and facebook sells info about you to amazon, gap, etc.
Marketing is different than selling. Sales is advertising and exchange of money and product. Marketing is presenting a modifiable product in a specific way to the right customer. New marketing techniques require information, and lots of it. You folks on facebook and twitter are supplying it.
Are your products and services delivered to you better? Is there not much difference from 5 years ago? Its up to you to decide, but the world is different in the information age and it is becoming increasingly personal and intrusive. Young people seem to welcome sharing themselves openly. Perhaps they haven't been burned by jilted lover yet. Maybe they haven't had their identity stolen yet. Maybe they just are ignorant of human frailties and think that it is OK to associate themselves with stuff that will embarrass themselves in a few years.
I think that all this social networking is a symptom of a generation that has no use for self identity. The people who frequent these sites have a need to be connected to other people. Low self esteem? Indoctrination into the borg? Failures that can be soothed by joining a group of similar failures? I dunno.
But I'll tell you this, surfing the web for definitions or products to buy are not the same as facebook. Conflating them as you have done is to gloss over the troubling aspects of voyeurism and narcissism embedded in these social networks.
I hope you grow strong and grow out of the need to prance around the web as if you are important. Probably you aren't. Deal with it.
apsorell (anonymous) says…
There is no need to be "important" to prance around the web, and doing so doesn't make one pretentious or desirous of importance or even necessarily wisdom. Facebooking and twittering aren't about a quest for wisdom just like they aren't about voyeurism or narcissism; all three exist without social networking websites, and would continue to exist should Twitter cease to be. But as klgibson said, "Social marketing Web sites are incredibly influential." Whether you're onboard or not, they are truly changing the way the world views media and the way media reaches every corner of the world. Students in today's classrooms are no less capable of paying attention in class (Economics 101 is the example used in a comment on my post, and I paid very good attention, as a matter of fact!). I for one do not use my twitter for never-ending updates from my ever-expanding list of "friends." But social networking sites like these when used in the right way can really impact a lot of people. It's not a bad thing, it's just a new thing. Well said, klgibson, and I'm glad to see someone else is on board. :)
cat_soup (anonymous) says…
Wow.... what a dick...