Social Media Decades of Powerful Change

2009-12-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

By James Rickman, SVS

In the early days of the Internet many doubters labeled it as a “fade” or “geeks trendy” hobby. Many recall the likes of Compuserve, the first email serve of sorts and Netscape’s Navigator Internet browser. Today, we find Google, Apple, Microsoft BING and various cell phone, PDAs or laptop gadgets like the new social media networking Motorola CLIQ or Google’s Android devices. Recent studies (2009) released by The Pew Research Center show that 79% of all adults in the U.S. use the Internet for social networking, retail shopping, education, and broadcast news sources versus only 46% in the year 2000. Further, we find 56% of Internet users are wirelessly connected versus 0% in the year 2000. This dynamic mobile integration has only begun spawning the ability for small business entrepreneurs to compete worldwide with breakthrough innovations for efficient cost controls savings of over 45% using new virtual services and (SaaS) cloud computing technology from geographically dispersed locations.

Online retailers such as Amazon.com, Paypal.com, eBay, Craigslist.org, Walmart.com, JCPenny.com, and Zappos.com now offer most every product once only available in costly real estate brick and motor locations. The power of the Internet social media age has not only shifted business technology but changed an entire generation of population lifestyle habits; how they shop, communicate, work, think, and business innovation. Family members connect instantly swapping photos or video using the likes of Twitter (23 million users), Facebook (200 million), or YouTube (100 million) among others. Today, almost 65% of all households use high speed broadband Internet connections versus only 5% in the year 2000. For example, the micro-blogging site, Twitter has grown over 700% within the past 14 months.

The age of the print advertising and media has truly become a thing of the past declining over 40% (2009), now replaced with search engine optimization (SEO) content, ClickAds, backlinks, and meta-tags among other techniques designed to generate rapid exposure to the over 1 billion people worldwide that have access to Internet connections.

Still concerns range from online fraud, identity theft to pornography accessible to kids surfing the net. A new age of potential hazards with the instant distribution of materials or tools of recruitment for radical organizations has the eye of authorities worldwide. Yet, we see it as helpful in Iran with the struggles of ordinary people attempting to gain freedoms. Even China a leading industrial nation maintains tight control of the Internet materials available to their citizens. Military experts at the Department of Defense now view cyber terrorism as a number one threat that has the potential to instantly cripple wreaking havoc on entire economies and individual corporations.

As the Internet accelerates the pace of social, business, and spiritual life worldwide it is prudent to also remember it is a tool that should be approached responsibly enabling advancements. However, the basis of capital assets found in enterprises still remains the high quality of its people practicing integrity, personal service, and creative solutions finding breakthrough methods such as crowd-sourcing. The Internet is the tool that allows all to share knowledge, wisdom and perform functions seemingly making the world smaller yet ultimately greater in its purpose.

About Author
Mr. Rickman is a respected analyst, innovative expert in business content and web development services with over 30-years experience, published worldwide. He is also the author of several books including Eight Billion People. Mr. Rickman holds advanced business and technical degrees from Boston University. For more information visit : http://www.sustainablevirtualbiz.com/ or call (503) 621-4953.