For me, reading Twitter and Facebook in the morning is equivalent to reading the morning paper in the 80’s. I can catch up with local and global news, entertainment and even the sports section in less than 30 minutes. The first thing I saw this morning was an urgent call from a trusted source (Mashable) to change my LinkedIn password amidst claims of a major leak by a Russian hacker. And this comes after recent “reports that its iOS app potentially violates user privacy by sending detailed calendar entries to its servers…”
After changing my password, it got me thinking about the state of social media today. Although still evolving, the world of social media is often overwhelming and convoluted with all its integration, mobile capabilities and privacy issues.
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| Photo credit: socialmediahq |
Facebook stock basically fell on its face after a much-hyped IPO and now there’s a question of whether or not Mark Zuckerberg engaged in insider trading. To add injury to insult, a new study that came out yesterday claims that engagement on Facebook has fallen with 35% of users spending less time on the site, and also that 4 out of 5 users are not influenced by ads run on the site.
And then there’s my favorite, Google, which has been putting all their eggs in the G+ basket. It’s not that I have anything against the flailing social network. It’s just that I think it came too late to the party and hasn’t differentiated itself enough. The only people I know that really use it are those in the social media industry. But if Facebook does fade out, G+ could be perfectly positioned to take over if it can hold out that long.
I think that most people do love to feel connected – not only to their friends, but to the rest of the world. Social networking is here to stay. What do you think it will look like and how will it evolve in the years to come? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
