Pages

Ads 468x60px

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Abney Technology News: Get Social, Your Future May Depend On It


You’ve probably never heard of Bulletin Board System (BBS), or CompuServe; these were arguably the social media of the pre-internet era. AOL (America Online) is what most people however regard as the precursor to today’s social networking sites. Some even call it the internet before the internet.

Although the history of internet can be traced back to the late 1960’s, the World Wide Web came in 1990, but it was not until 1993 that it became accessible to basically everyone around the world.

From the highly successful Classmates.com and the not so successful SixDegrees.com, Hi5, BlackPlanet, down to the Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter era, the social media world has evolved to become integral part of our everyday lives, and we now celebrate it as one of the greatest gifts technology has given us.

Social Media Week (SMW), which takes place twice a year worldwide, explores the social, cultural and economic impact of social media.

Founded by Toby Daniels, CEO of Crowdcentric, SMW is arguably the largest social media event in the world. Cities of the world where strong local organizers can be gotten are chosen to host each event. Lagos, Nigeria has been chosen as one of the eight cities in the world to host the event this year.

The global theme for the event in 2014 is ‘The Future of Now: Always On, Always Connected.’ The first event of 2014 will hold from February 17 – 21.

This year’s team borders around some of those things we’d easily pick out as the ills or disadvantages of social media and how it has destroyed some social structures in our society.

It has reduced productivity and has led to loss of billions of dollars for many companies. Morse claimed that British companies lost 2.2 billion a year to the social phenomenon and Nucleus Research reported that Facebook shaves 1.5% off office productivity. These two studies posted by Wired.com highlight one of the effects of social media.

“How can we balance and preserve humanness — meaning the ability to listen, empathize, engage, focus and be present in the moment — despite the constant disruption that technology enables?” The question was posed on the SMW website with a promise to discuss it at the event.

Several other topics to be discussed will address virtually everything we’d identify as the ills of social media, with posers like; ‘What does it mean to be “more human” in an age of digital technology?’, ‘How can we find and embrace the technologies that lead us to have more time and focus, not less?’, ‘How can we facilitate meaningful conversations, practices for devoting time to creative thinking and mindful contemplation, and automation of technologies that create more time for you?’, etc.

Social media has made us more aware of the world we live in. It has also driven campaigns and spread news faster than any medium has ever done. The world can now know about breaking news in seconds, while media houses can grow faster with their social media activity.

This medium has also become a learning hub. People engage in intellectual discussions, tutorials, interviews and research via social media platforms.

Perhaps the industry to have fully harnessed the potentials of social media is the marketing industry. Several e-marketing/e-payment solutions have used the social media to push their brands. We now have folks whose day job is social media marketing, and believe me, they are doing fine.

0 comments:

Post a Comment