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You say you want a revolution…

August 18th, 2009

Quick ode to the Beatles on that title…but it leads me to embed a great video that was forwarded onto me through a friend on Facebook.  Apropos medium for pass along, considering the subject matter of the video.  I recommend watching the entire video (it’s only 4+ minutes) as there are some staggering stats with respect to the meteoric rise and adoption of social media.  Quickly, here are a couple of interesting factoids that you will see peppered throughout the stream.

  • In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing email addresses to incoming freshman
  • Wikipedia has over 13 million articles, and studies show it’s more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica
  • 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content (Remember what Barry Judge said?)
  • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations while only 14% trust advertisements

Here was the key statement in the video for me: “Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate“.  Consider that for a moment, and reflect back on what your life was like before you got got an email address, started using the Internet for the most mundane tasks (shopping, weather, sports scores), and finally – before you engaged in any form of social media.  It was a different world when we relied on the ‘analog’ technology of yesteryear.  I embrace the present and future, with a fond look over the shoulder at the past (getting a good letter in the mail from time to time is very satisfying and I am a big fan of the Sunday morning newspaper). 

Stats credit goes to Socialnomics.

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  1. Jmatt
    August 19th, 2009 at 08:17 | #1

    Love this. I use it to show friends/family the world I work in.

    Also, really like what Battelle clearly states that this isn’t about *how* we humans communicate, it is about technology and media enhancing our *ability* to communicate.. http://battellemedia.com/archives/004989.php

    Big +1 to your Sunday paper comment, unplugging sometimes is key for sanity.

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