Great things have been touted for social media – giving power back to the people e.g. Arab spring, the GM thing over on the bike forum, United Breaks Guitars (see YouTube if you’ve not seen it – a musician saw his guitar getting thrown about by United’s baggage handlers, it got broken, he asked for compensation, they said no so he wrote a song and video and put it on YouTube. Their share price dropped 10%…)
+ it’s much easier to spot the liars and the cheats and the game players – Wiener in the US posting photos of himself in his pants for e.g.

I’ve noticed that people I’ve worked with who are known blaggers and liars don’t really like social media – they realise that the world is changing and they’re going to find it harder to get away with it…

The optimist in me thinks this could be a major cultural shift
The pessimist realises the blaggers and the cheats always seem to get away with it somehow.

Thoughts?….

Not sure it is “Social Media” so much as just “the internet”.

But yeah, there does seem to be a perceptible shift in power, though I suspect the big guns will always get away with anything they like.

Great things have been touted for social media – giving power back to the people e.g. Arab spring,

Or the “blackberry August riots”. I think it will go the way of the website/blogs: too many people with too many opinions that it will become white noise.

Governments will certainly be keen not to give power back to the people.

I think it is already is a major cultural shift. It’s started with blogging, where average people can make themselves heard, but systems like Twitter give that speed. A comment can reach a lot of people near-instantaneously.

It’s easy to be sarcastic or scornful, “oh, some people on the Internet got upset.” Once of a time, that meant that a few nerds were arguing over whether it should be Boot’s or Boots’ the Chemist (or, Chemists / Chemist’s / Chemists’). But these days, normal people use the Internet too, and it’s just another communication medium. You wouldn’t hear “oh, it doesn’t really matter, it was only on TV.”

I’ve noticed that people I’ve worked with who are known blaggers and liars don’t really like social media

Having worked in new media for many years, I can confirm that the worst blaggers were the first on board Twitter etc.

But it is more interesting now that it’s not entirely populated by tedious attention seekers.

I’ve noticed that people I’ve worked with who are known blaggers and liars don’t really like social media – they realise that the world is changing and they’re going to find it harder to get away with it.

So if I say I dont like it by implication i am like them?
I think asking on an internet forum populated by IT geeks and work shirkers will get some positive repsonses for social media.

TBH i dont do much/anything except on here. I have Face book but rarely use it and have never looked at twitter in my life.
Things change but I cant see it leading to a brave new world, the end of social and economic injustice and the onset of brotherly love.
I suspect some people will make lots of money and companies will brand manage via the social media sites you mention.
It is just a tool that can be used for good [ arab spring] or bad summer riots.

If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal

Look at the people who run these companies. They’re commercial organisations there purely to make money. Not out of some sense of altruism.

When it suits they’ll side with the establishment, as they’re now loaded and have become part of it. Like Google signing up with the Chinese as long as there’s no access to independent news. The ever more inventive, greed-based commercial forays of Mr Zuckerburg. Etc, etc, etc.

The wikileaks stuff essentially came down to an ego-maniac’s piece of self promotion.

And e-petitions. Yeah, right….

As they become more established, they just become the establishment

“It is just a tool that can be used for good [ arab spring] or bad summer riots. “

Agree with this – it’s an efficient communication medium that can facilitate a more rapid response from a larger number of people (whether good or bad), but I don’t see how it fundamentally changes anything. Riots and uprisings happened long before this era.

An unfortunate consequence of Web 2.0 is a significant increase in the noise: signal ratio. It’s not a meritocracy.

RATM beating X factor to xmas # 1 has to be the pinnacle of this generations achievments

A lot of analysts reckoned the “shock” Scottish Election result was down to the use of Social Media and the internet. The mainstream media (i.e. all the newspapers and the BBC/STV) are very pro-unionist in their reporting, so the use of the internet as a means of providing an alternative viewpoint does seem to be having some effect.

RATM beating X factor to xmas # 1 has to be the pinnacle of this generations achievments

Well if it was the dawning of a new age, the internet would be a new way of unsigned emerging musical talent being brought to the public’s attention, not just another few million songs sold by sony.

Massive tangent (but still related): Anyone else keep getting Facebook recommend that they “subscribe” to Mark Zuckerberg and Ariana Huffington?

I wish there was a **** off button on FB.

RATM beating X factor to xmas # 1 has to be the pinnacle of this generations achievments

Yes if that campaiogn did not show them that we could not be cynically manipulated into making a song number one then i dont know what will:roll:
yes Sony, who owned the rights to both records, were abolutely gutted by this.

To think previous generations stopped wars, went on marches, did drugs, free love , mocked the queen , grew their hair, rebelled and protested but hell you show them and thank god you did not do what they told you 😯

the irony