Social Media Life

Today I am assessing an article on the social media phenomenon. The author, Danah Boyd, takes a viewpoint similar to my own but is able to bring more knowledge to the subject. Social media has become an integral part of everyday life. It has not been that way for very long, although for me it has been this way for most of my life.

I cannot remember anything of the dot-com crash. I vaguely remember commercials ending with a catchy dot-com emphasis. The Web 1.0 is completely out of mind for me, BBSs are something I did not hear of until a month ago. Since I've had access to the internet, social media platforms such myspace and facebook have not only been available but prevalent in my everyday life.

It would make sense that once your entire system, Web 1.0, collapses and you begin anew, Web 2.0, that you turn to your basics and comforts. With BBSs, the popularity was on the rise because of the ability to socialized with anyone. The ability to socialize with individuals or communities around the nation was an astounding advancement in internet technologies. With the start of Web 2.0, people still craved the ability to socialized via the internet. Since it wasn't necessarily a start from scratch but rather restarting with a particular desire and goal, the results were incredible.

Modern social media has evolved drastically and quickly in a rather astoundingly short amount of time. In the timeline of social media sites, we have seen some gain extraordinary popularity and then suddenly lose millions of daily users over just a few years. Some sites such as Friendster were quite popular and died out due to more popular sites that offered new features and appealed to younger audiences that had these new methods of socializing become true standards. Others such as MySpace died out as newer sites such as Facebook capitalized on key marketing strategies that made it essential in a wide array of aspects of peoples lives.

Being able to evolve to what daily users want, while still knowing what is essential for all users to have, is a key component in surviving the cut. Today, the entire world is connected through social media sites. A picture taken in Paris can instantly be seen in America when posted on social media sites.

Bringing nations together, whether good or bad, changes so many things in society. Previously, it could take years and extensive travel to bring a large group together. Today, groups can make pages for themselves on these sites and thousands can discover them and join their cause. Profound life changing actions found their way on Facebook when someone posted a live stream of an altercation between police and a citizen. This brought millions of eyes onto their cause. We have even these tactics employed by the United States government when a political party staged a sit-in and streamed their actions via social media.

The changes that have occurred in these sites is brilliant but they are certainly not over yet. We still see new social media platforms arise every day but not many seem to have the right formula to join the phenomenon. Perhaps another crash is needed before the next evolutionary step, although I believe the next revolutionary means of socialization is on its way and will be here before we know it.

If you'd like to read the article I have posted on you can find it here. Social Media: A Phenomenon to be Analyzed