"Let me tweet on your wall" (trend story) 3/16/14

            What is a trend? Who says it is a trend? Why do they matter? When thinking about a trend it becomes seamless and changes every five minutes (figuratively speaking). A trend is defined as a general direction in which something is developing or changing. There are many types of trends: cultural, business like, political, and scientific. A cultural trend refers to a measureable change in behavior that develops among a population of individuals. Trends are usually long lasting and indicative of a broader cultural shift. While trends can result from technological change, the reverse is more common, as exemplified by the broad adoption of green technologies in response to a widespread cultural embrace of environmentalism. One specific trend invading our intelligence is the many faces of social media. Targeting preteens, teens, adults, and even older folk today: keeping up with selfies, tweeting, and with the latest news from second hand sources. Social media has been around since humans began to talk. One of the first signs of human social media was cave wall paintings. Some of the earliest forms of social media were not digital, they were primitive and did not involve a computer, but did involve some type of technology to convey a message. All living things communicate to each other in some way or another, but humans leave lasting impressions intentionally. Social media refers to interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. One popular social networking service of social media is Twitter. “Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read “tweets,” which are text messages limited to 140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS, or mobile device application. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has offices in New York City, Boston, San Antonio, and Detroit. Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass created Twitter in March 2006. By July 2006 the site was launched and available to use immediately. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with 500 million registered users in 2012, who posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day. Twitter is now one of the ten-most visited websites, and has been described as “the SMS of the internet.” It is also one on the most successful startup companies of all time by market capitalization, revenue, growth, and cultural impact” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter). People say that Facebook (another popular social media network service) is for connecting with the people you went to school with and Twitter is for people you wished you had gone to school with. While Facebook is a multi-purpose social networking platform, allowing users to chat, post photos, post notes, and play games, Twitter is built around the posting of short 140 character messages, or “tweets.” These are the two most popular social networks in the world. Which should we chose? Why must we choose one? Which is better? The differences between the two are substantial and in some ways direct, comparison between the two is actually difficult to make. Twitter is simple and feels like Google did in 1998, while Facebook offers a portal-like inference somewhat reminiscent of Yahoo. The only effect social media has on society is separating correlation from causation in data. There is abundant evidence that human behaviors tend to cluster in social networks over time—friends tend to adopt the same behavior or purchase the same products at approximately the same time. Other effects include; bullying, sexual assaults, anti-socialism, vision problems, and separation of the “outside world,” these examples are only a small portion of problems many people face today because of social media. According to (pewinternet.org), “13% of online adults use Twitter, and half of Twitter users access the service on a cell phone.” “Non-white Internet users continue to have higher rates of Twitter use than their white counterparts; indeed, the Twitter adoption gap between African-Americans and Whites has increased over the past six months.” “Although young adults continue to have relatively high rates of Twitter usage, the number of 30-49 year olds who use the service has doubled since late 2010-from 7%of such users in November to 14% in May 2011. This growth trend is especially pronounced among 25-35 year olds.” This is why we can call Twitter a popular trend in our culture; we have mom’s, celebrities, students, older folk, and everyone else using this social media to stay connected with everything Twitter has to offer. When I polled 100 students and faculty at the University of San Francisco to choose between Facebook and Twitter most said, “Twitter was the new Facebook.” Others chose: Vine, Tumblr, Instagram, and YouTube. Choosing between only Facebook and Twitter; 56% said Twitter and 30% said Facebook and 14% said neither, and chose other networks. This is what Facebookers said about Facebook; “it appeals to social animals and can be very addicting to people who have an insatiable appetite to stay connected with friends and make new acquaintances. In fact, some people report they rarely use email anymore, relying almost entirely on Facebook for email, chat, image, and video sharing.” On the contrary this is what Tweeters said about Twitter; “it may be more addictive once you get the hang of tweeting; you get more immediate responses and it seems to live somewhere between the worlds of email, instant messaging and blogging. Twitter encourages constant “linking out” to anywhere and, in that respect, is more analogous to a pure search engine; another way to find people and content all over the Net.” In the end, both Twitter and Facebook are simply communication tools; both will continue to evolve and morph as users find new ways to extract value. Network may or may not become a long-term winner in the rapidly evolving social networking space. But, will either Twitter or Facebook become the next Google? Or will they fade into the rear view mirror of technological and social evolution? Not sure, what do you think?