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Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.
Thomas A. Edison

Technological advances can often serve as a dual edged sword. You can’t always predict their impact with complete accuracy. Sometimes they work as intended and sometimes they have effects that you cannot see until they are already in place. And some technological marvels hit the world for but a brief moment.

Ask those people who own laser disc players or eight track cassette players about this and you’ll see a chorus of heads nodding in agreement with you. That is not a value judgement, just an observation. Sometimes the reason why a certain technology lives or dies has little to do with it is actual utility.

Social media networks are one of those advances that we are still evaluating. A few years ago MySpace was among the hottest services on the web. It created a lot of buzz but gradually was eclipsed by other applications such as Twitter and Facebook.

The biggest challenge that MySpace faced was a brand image that suggested it was the province of children. As a result they didn’t gain as much marketshare as some of their competitors and that had a serious impact upon them.

Although it should be noted that the younger generation is of great interest to business. They may not have deep pockets yet to draw upon, but they do have influence upon their parents. Not to mention that they are growing up in a world in which social media is not considered to be new or a fad. It is just part of life.

It is one of those things that makes people of a certain age realize that it is a different world than the one we grew up in. There are new definitions of time, space and distance.

Some people have suggested that within two generations children will no longer define a pen pal as someone they exchange hand written letters with. The term will still exist but the tool used for communication will be far different.

The forces responsible for this change will be social media networks such as Facebook. The online world offers tools and resources that ordinary pen and paper cannot compete with. Instant communication that includes text, images and video is a game changer.

Certainly it has helped to shrink the world. Facebook has made it simple for extended families to keep in touch with members who live both close and far away. Time and distance no longer matters. If you have an internet connection and a Facebook account you can check in with your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. Status updates help to provide vital and trivial information about them.
 

Image via Wikipedia

While some have voiced concern that Facebook creates a voyeuristic society it can also be argued that it really has helped to foster relationships that might not otherwise exist.

Ensconced in your virtual living room you can gain insight and knowledge about them that you might not learn otherwise.

Major life cycle events such as life and death are announced there. Family photos are displayed to ooh and awe over. Memes that cycle through provide nuggets of information about favorite movies, music and interesting facts about them.

If statistics are to be believed they help to prove that this is not a fad that is likely to end any time soon.

General Growth

• More than 250 million active users
• More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

User Engagement

• Average user has 120 friends on the site
• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day
• More than 8 million users become fans of Pages each day

Applications

• More than 1 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 10 million videos uploaded each month
• More than 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week
• More than 2.5 million events created each month
• More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site

Bear in mind that those figures are for a company that is about 5.5. years old. Provided that Facebook doesn’t implode, explode or collapse for any reason it is safe to say that predictions of the demise of the pad and paper pen pal just might be accurate.

Twitter has been coy about releasing the number of users of its service, but estimates range in the tens of millions. What is significant about Twitter is that it has become a tool that many executives, politicians, celebrities and athletes use. Where else can you find Lance Armstrong, Tony Hawk, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Case and Jack Welch together.

It is important to clarify that in many of these cases the Tweeting that takes place is being conducted by the actual person and not a publicist or staff person. It is a different ball game when the real person is doing it and not some PR firm.

All told if you circle back to the question of whether social media is a fad or part of the fabric of society it is hard to come up with any conclusion that does not state that it is here for the long run. There will be new applications and new developments, but it is highly unlikely that we’ll see a time when social media is talked about like telegrams and the Pony Express.