From Advertising Age: LinkedIn Skyrockets as Job Losses Mounts. The impressive rise in LinkedIn participation shows the power of social media and the cognitive shift from hunting for “jobs” to connecting with people. Good time to reread Granovetter’s “The Strength of Weak Ties” or Barabasi’s Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means.
These should be required reading for anyone working with or interested in social media applications. (BTW, Linked is available in audio for commuters and aural learners.) The Strength of weak ties was one of the seminal papers on the development of social appearance.
Social Media Across Generations
Pew Internet & American Life Project researcher Amanda Lenhart reports in Adults and Social Network Websites that the number of adult Internet users who have taken up social networking has more than quadrupled since 2005. This isn’t surprising if you consider the way conversations have moved toward social media as a marketing tool in lieu of a mere social connection with friends.
Networks have properties that defy traditional linear ways of thinking about market reach and targeting users, so growth should follow exponentially. In October, another Pew researcher reported on how the Internet and cell phones.
Twitter and Goliath
First, it was “Dell Hell” and now it is “AmazonFail”. For all the debates over the purpose, point, and value of social media, it is events like these that illustrate how important they have become and how powerful they can be. “Dell Hell” is one of the iconic stories in the history of social media sending an emphatic message that consumers have a new power.
In June 2005, blogger Jeff Jarvis shared his less than satisfactory experience with Dell’s customer service on his blog “Buzz Machine” with the title “Dell Hell.” (This story is documented in a number of places.
