Services such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn all provide an online means of building interpersonal relationships, and face it, most of us are in the relationship business. Bonds are built among users based on everything from shared interests to what happened on your last vacation - an online version of the chat by the water cooler. As people continue to participate on these sites, the effects will be noticed - as indicated in a recent survey*, the percentage of journalists who say the emergence of social media has a significant impact on the:
- Speed of News 73%
- Availablity of News 69%
- Tone of Discussion 62%
- Editorial Direction 51%
- Quality of News 43%
- Helps you stay better connected to your personal and professional networks
- Provides a great way to communicate with people already using social-networking web sites
- Business applications haven't taken off the way social applications have, yet, considering that we're in the early days of even having such new, niche media.
*Source: Brodeur Strategic Planning Group