Social Media –?a new concept?

Now that social media with @social and #media hashtags is becoming the core of everyday communication, it has evolved from being "2.0" yet it is still poorly understood. Highly praised and as soon as it evolves in its own rights condemned as subversive. Social Media shares the challenge most media developments encounter once they enter the mainstream. In the process of their acceptance, they are pushed into the established set of paradigms of how media is/was expected to function. Twitter is expected to work like picture postcards - only shorter and faster. Only it escapes this nice idea and becomes a force in its own rights - creating a parallel communication universe that cannot be controlled as expected. It's current use in a highly limited political communication that favors random yelling rather than in-depth arguments is the most prominent example.

Only, the concept of social media as a means of interaction is in no way new. It just used different tools and different intermediaries. Looking at the historical development is often an extremely valuable step to better understand personal and professional media use.

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Social media – “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques” (Wikipedia reviewed Feb 2011) ” are relatively inexpensive and accessible to enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, compared to industrial media, which generally require significant resources to publish information.” (ibid) As with many developments in multimedia and digital publishing, social media are considered a recent development, overcoming the limitations of “traditional” publishing. The potential of Facebook is rooted in the fact that it connects everyone with everyone, becoming the factotum of the city, knowing every story, every love affair, and speculation. There is high demand by everyone: tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono, everyone asks for me, everyone wants me, and good compensation for social media services. Ahimè, che furia! Ahimè, che folla! Ah, what frenzy, Ah, what a crowd!

Social media – “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques” (Wikipedia reviewed Feb 2011) ” are relatively inexpensive and accessible to enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, compared to industrial media, which generally require significant resources to publish information.” (ibid) As with many developments in multimedia and digital publishing, social media are considered a recent development, overcoming the limitations of “traditional” publishing. The potential of Facebook is rooted in the fact that it connects everyone with everyone, becoming the factotum of the city, knowing every story, every love affair, and speculation. There is high demand by everyone: tutti mi chiedono, tutti mi vogliono, everyone asks for me, everyone wants me, and good compensation for social media services. Ahimè, che furia! Ahimè, che folla! Ah, what frenzy, Ah, what a crowd!

What Zuckerberg can learn from an expert in social media in the 17th century is the integration of communication services with a brick and mortar presence in a shop. Definitely a good combination: a te fortuna non mancherà. (and he has to learn to sing).

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