100,000,000… Number of YouTube videos viewed EACH DAY
412.3… Number of Years it would take to view EVERY VIDEO on YouTube, if you start now…
13,000,000… Number of ARTICLES available on Wikipedia
3,600,000,000… Number of PHOTOS archived on Flickr as of June 2009
3,000,000… Number of TWEETS per day on Twitter.com
5,000,000,000… Number of MINUTES spent on Facebook each day
… and if Facebook were a country, it would be the 8th most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan.
Yes, social media is huge. But what is more surprising than its popularity is its humble origins, and how simple ideas grew into social phenomenon.
YouTube, like most social startups, began in a garage. Flickr simply wanted to make it easy to share photos. Facebook was started by a Harvard college student to connect with other college students. Despite the simple ideas and simpler origins of each tool, each has gone on to change the way people communicate, and some would say, change the world.
But was that the intent? The history of Twitter is probably the best, if not the most entertaining, story of how a little idea became the “next big thing.” Originally, the tool was developed so friends could tell friends about the scene at local clubs. Next thing you know, Aston Kutcher is sharing photos of his famous wife with millions around the world. How did this happen? Easy. YOU did it. And social media is giving you the credit.
According to the July 19, 2009 post on the Twitter blog:
Twitter began as a rudimentary social tool based on the concept of status messages but together with those who use it every day, the service has taught us what it wants to be. From features invented by users to applications built on the platform, we're still discovering potential.
Tool builders, like Twitter, don’t necessarily plan on what people will do with their tool, they give users the power to be creative and use the tool in ways that work for them, often in unexpected ways. And even “traditional” media folks acknowledge that the user has that power.
According to media mogul Rupert Murdoch , “Technology is shifting the power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are in control.” Rupert knows a thing or two about media and was one of the first large media companies to jump into social networking with the acquisition of MySpace.
Social technology is just a tool. The success of the tool is based on the people who use it. And that is the heart of social networking.
People who share social networking tools with friends get this. It’s an extension of their face-to-face conversations and a way to keep in touch, meet and make friends with a wider group of people than their geographic network. Companies, on the other hand, are still trying to figure out how to join the social media conversation.
There are lots of companies who have a social media presence and lots of case studies on how effective they have been. But the best example (at least in my mind) is one of the first examples, and that’s musical bands on MySpace. I don’t know which band deserves credit for being the first to figure out how to market music on the site, but it’s become a cottage industry. And people want more interaction like this. Not just from their favorite bands but from all the companies they buy from.
In fact, 85% of social media users believe that companies should interact with their customers via social media. At Kutano, we believe this too. Even though we are one of the social technology “tool builders” -- and not a traditional consumer goods company -- we believe in interacting with our customers. We personally answer your emails (often directly from the CEO), respond to you on Twitter and converse with you in our own tool. And we try and make it easy to give us feedback.
And like all social tool builders we want you to use Kutano and have conversations, meet new friends and expand your presence across the web. As we use your feedback to add new features, and as more people join us on Kutano, we are very excited to see how YOU use Kutano to meet your own social media needs. However you use it, all of us at Kutano are sure it will be in ways more creative than we ever expected. We can’t wait.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment