Yesterday, Shelby covered this topic and I must say by and large I agree with her. I know, where’s the fun in a “She Said, He Said” topic when we agree? Well, sometimes it’s more about different perspectives and I think this is one of those times. While I agreed on the word “obsolete” when Shelby and I discussed the topic, I was thinking more along the lines of ineffective.
Ineffective social media networks
Let’s start with one Shelby cited: MySpace. She makes a great point that many musicians still consider it a platform to promote their music. It’s been at least a couple years since I deleted and closed my MySpace account but I do remember it being easy to share music. So with the hipster music crowds, is MySpace something more than ineffective or obsolete? I guess, but if the mainstream, you know middle of the road folks like me, never had or no longer have a MySpace account how are you going to reach us?
I still think Google Wave was pretty darn cool. The problem is, other than social media and technology geeks, nobody really jumped on board. So the technology behind Google Wave is anything but obsolete. It’s just ineffective because not enough folks utilized it. I’m guessing that once I get inside Google+ I’m going to see some of the Wave technology reused; much like Apple reused the Lisa technology in the Mac product line.
Degrees of obsolescence of ineffectiveness
Geolocation services like Foursquare will not make it on their own. Again, their technology is anything but obsolete. It’s actually cutting edge, pretty cool and fun stuff in my opinion. The problem is that Foursquare as a standalone network isn’t very useful to me. I only check in when I want to add context to a status update on Twitter by sharing my location. That’s pretty much the only reason I use the Foursquare application on my phone. As for the Foursquare website, I think I have logged in once in the last several months. So, paired with other social media networks like Twitter or even Hashable, Foursquare’s geolocation can be effective. Alone, I’d day Foursquare boarders on ineffective and obsolete as a social media network.
#shehechat Update
If you find the back and forth discussion style Shelby and I employee with posts like this, you are sure to enjoy our Twitter chat tonight at 8pm CST. Each Thursday evening, we discuss social media topics live on Twitter in a back-and-forth style. We fire our 140 character responses to each other and other chat participants jump in as well.
Here are the topics for this week:
1. Which social media network will become obsolete first: FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, etc.?
2. Respect and decency in social media related but not limited to #CaseyAnthony trial and verdict.
3. Automated Tweets. This one goes out to @Spiffter’s automated Tweet to #shehechat last week.
If you’re new to #shehechat, here is some background:
* Introduction to #shehechat and how to follow along on Twitter
* Our blogs on this site in the “She Said, He Said” category which started #shehechat
