the new buzzword

so recently I was tasked by the boss to prepare a social media presentation for the management. with all the hype surrounding twitter and crisis management, it was only a matter of time that the company would get on the buzzword bandwagon. thus, eyes and sleeves simultaneously rolled, I set about to research my subject.

first on my togethr list is a social media workshop by a self professed twitter addict and this guy. I started the workshop with as much skepticism as I could muster (that's the only way you'll ever learn anything) and decided to twitter while listening, to show how in I was with all this social media / web 2.0 stuff. after 30 minutes and three twitter posts later, I realised I had no idea what a hashtag was and had not placed the given hashtag (#myprca) on my twitter posts, thus alienating my witty comments on the workshop from the rest of the twittering audience. and don't get me started on twitpics. the workshop was an eye-opener to say the least. eventhough I was an avid used of tumblr and facebook, I realised that I was still a long way away from becoming a self professed anything in the world of social media.

*However, Google News still rules in my book as the best news related search engine but am contemplating delicious for my research based search engine*

properly enlightened of my ignorance, I decided to continue my research on the internet. A few google clicks into the www, I found a neat little presentation pack that explains Social Media in Plain English. Common Crafts, the creator of the Plain English series of presentation, explains the many facets of Social Media, in simple, paper cutout formats (similar to those employed by the Maxis ads, btw). Thanks to his informative and easy to understand presentations, I now am proudly a user of delicious, have setup my twitpic email on my phone and also managed to gain some new zombie survival skills at the same time. Not to mention finally truly understanding the concept of Wiki (as opposed to thinking it is all a branch of Wikipedia). Brilliant to say the least.

thus I started crafting the presentation, of which content I won't dwell here. It's for management. You get the picture.

Once I completed it, I was still buzzing with social media excitement. I had a discussion with Adam on the growth of social media and its sustainability. if you have been using the internet for as long as I have, you will know the story of the deaths of website hosters (before the advent of blogs) like geocities, goplay and envy.nu. their demise caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of user generated websites (mine included). currently, most of the major social media sites like twitter and tumblr, are free agents, running on the backs of hopeful investors who see the potential in its business. however, if they don't get bought out, or figure out how to generate money soon, these sites might well disappear into the nethernet, just as their equally popular predecessors. let's pray that doesn't happen.