Last week, I heard about this video and it absolutely blew my mind. I know #SocialMediaisTakingOvertheWorld but this further solidified my belief. This video discussed the internet, social media and new technology. I will highlight the parts I found most interesting and relevant to this blog.
The first statistic that surprised me was that Americans now have access to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages, and that is 1 trillion if you didn't know. There are also more than 65,000 iPhone apps.
Accessibility to these new forms of technology has caused all forms of traditional advertising, such as television, newspapers, the radio, and magazines, have gone down, while digital advertising on cell phones apps and the internet has increased by 18.1% and 9.1% respectively.
And more about cell phones...the video states that 95% of adults have them and that they will be the primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020.
"The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller..." according to a quote in the video by Ray Kurzweil, American author, inventor and futurist. "So what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket..."
Let's briefly discuss YouTube's overwhelming success. A statistic in the clip states that more videos have been uploaded to YouTube in the past 2 months than if ABC, CBS, and NBC news stations had been airing video 24/7 since 1948. Let that statistic sink in...that is a lot of video! Along these same lines, ABC, CBS and NBC get 10 million unique visitors every month, collectively, while Facebook, MySpace and YouTube get 250 million. This statistic is amazing considering Facebook, MySpace and YouTube have been around for less than 6 years.
What about the growing issue of illegally downloaded music? Well, this appears to be a serious problem since according to the clip, 95 percent of music was not paid for last year. Maybe music artists do have a reason to worry.
What about our favorite site? Wikipedia! It started in 2001 and now has "more than 13 million articles in more than 200 languages." Wow!
The video discusses some instances where social media has had a significant impact on companies and people. For example, Dell reported making $3 million from Twitter posts alone since 2007. Barack Obama raised $55 million through social media in 29 short days.
So there you have it...social media really is taking over the world. The video begins by saying that it is "easier than ever to reach a large audience, but harder than ever to really connect with it." This quote explains my purpose for writing this blog, not only to highlight the successes of social media but also to discuss the problems with it. While social media is great for connecting people, it is also becoming very impersonal.
Issues like these are what I will continue to touch on in my blog posts.
For now, just consider the statistics above and how they affect your life. It really is true that #SocialMediaisTakingOvertheWorld.
I found this to be very interesting! great blog post idea
ReplyDeleteThis is incredibly fascinating! Obviously I've seen how much technology has grown but seeing these numbers is crazy! Great idea
ReplyDeleteI love that video!! I also love the quote you talked about in the last paragraph. I feel like it is so hard to connect to so many people, only because there is so many mediums. I wonder if there will ever be a way that prevails against all others. I also feel like we forever will have a huge gap in what the generation above and below us know, because we are the generation that gets to choose what we read and see. Right now I feel like it's all about innovating new social media, and later, it will be about innovating the one that everyone will turn to. Great blog! Enjoyed reading it!
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