To understand what I refer to when I say “a shift in how people are using the web” I highly recommend a brand new book called Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.

Call it what ever you like, but the shift is real and it has significant implications for future society and business.

@uMCLE

You make a great point about how social interactions add value to life generally, as well as to business connections. It seems to me that the nature of platforms like Twitter, FB et al means people can ignore generally accepted social conventions and basically punt out their message with no attempt to understand anyone else’s point of view, concerns etc. This doesn’t work in face to face interactions and is annoying and counterproductive online.

However, when done well, the social aspects of these platforms give us a reach and ability to re-connect or begin new relationships that cannot be done any other way. This is truly social and an appropriate use of the term.

I am also a little uncomfortable with the term since it has become generic as you say, and many of the platforms are now home to distinctly antisocial behaviors. However I find some people wasting energy and time truing to define these offerings with some other terms that are equally bad or worse: “Emerging Media” for example. What does that mean?

It’s a great debate, thanks for raising it.

My point is that “technology” enabled your group to come together. I (obviously) am about as gung-ho as anyone can be about that. It’s what you did with the tools, not the tools themselves that is the radical breakthrough.

My reaction is to three days of seeing the technology — and not the people part — being touted as key to “social media.”

P.S. One of Nashville’s greatest hidden treasures are our growing network of greenways. Good luck on your efforts.

>>But if you take away the word “online,” social media is what
>>people have done since the dawn of time: We are who we are.
>>We express ourselves. We connect with others. There’s really
>>nothing new or different about social media — oh, except
>>that online, these things can scale to levels that have the
>>tendency to crush the status quo maintained by those who refuse
>>to adopt them.

Sure, people have always been “social” but their ability to interact and connect has changed over time and, I would argue, diminished in many aspects over the past century as families moved apart physically, entertainment and recreation became more screen-based and private and so on. I blogged once about the diaspora of modern life a while back.

And so I don’t think the only important nuance to online social media is its ability to scale. What about its ability to transcend the limits of time and space? What about its ability to gather and foster highly fragmented or scattered like-minded folks? What about the speed with which you can pop up into a whole connected movement now?

One quick example. Some one in my town recently discovered that the company that owns an unused, 8-mile rail corridor would be more than happy to abandon its claim and allow a bike path to be built. Within weeks, using Ning, we had a whole web site with an email list and postings and organization for a steering committee. Soon we’ll be using it for fundraising too. Suddenly, we have a movement and we’ve already recruited people from the other 2 towns involved and got the attention of the local press and so on (see http://baycolonyrailtrail.org/). That’s social media and that’s “new” and important…