Fred Wilson sparked an interesting discussion this weekend when he put forth his vision for social media. While it is hard to determine where social media will go he envisioned social media as “every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet.” The main point of contention was whether or not most users will actually become contributors to social media.
As Charlene Li wrote in her recent book, Groundswell, Forrester research found that the majority of users will not write their own blog post let alone post a comment on a blog. Instead they will simply consume the content and move on to the next interesting thing that they find. While Fred Wilson may have an active base of readers, I can guarantee you that the majority of readers on his site simply read his article and move on with their day.
While I agree that we will see a continuing increase in the volume of contributors and content creators, social media will still be subject to societal restrictions. There is still a minority of people that don’t have access to a computer as well as uneducated individuals that are illiterate or face other disabilities. The day that everybody contributes to social media is the day that everybody in this country votes.
It is a beautiful vision but unfortunately I don’t think it is realistic. What do you think the future of social media holds? Do you think that everyone will eventually become content creators?
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When my grandma (who doesn't have a computer) is looking at pictures on Flickr because she knows that's the best place to find pictures of her great grandchild, it's not too much of a leap to expect that in 20 years grandparents everywhere will think of using social media tools to communicate with their great grandkids.
That's just one case where social media tools will become integrated into peoples lives; there are tons more that are obvious, others will arise as new tools and systems become available.
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Not everyone will go to the effort of writing a blog post, but by creating a profile on Facebook or Myspace, or uploading a message via Twitter, you've taken part. And plenty of people are looking at tools like Twitter for integration in practical solutions to daily problems, rather than a social network/message service in itself.
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However, I think the REAL differences in growth will be in number of critics, collectors, joiners, and spectators. (**described in Groundswell, listed below)
In effect, I think what will be most noticeable is in the number of people who'll move from "inactive" to people who begin to consume social content. Some sooner then others, but eventually it'll become inevitable in order to live in the 21st century.
--Debbie Hemley
www.impressionsthroughmedia.com
**from Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff:
1. Creators— make social content go. They write blogs or upload video, music, or text.
2. Critics—respond to content from others. They post reviews, comment on blogs, participate in forums, and edit wiki articles.
3. Collectors—organize content for themselves or others using RSS feeds, tags, and voting sites like Digg.com.
4. Joiners—connect in social networks like MySpace and Facebook.
5. Spectators—consume social content including blogs, user-generated video, podcasts, forums, or reviews.
6. Inactives—neither create nor consumer social content of any kind.
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