Inescapable

Social media has certainly made it's impression on the world in a short period of time. As I was perusing Mashable for some inspiration for my final blog, I came across an article regarding how social media has changed our everyday lives. I've chosen the three that are related to my personal social media experience.
1. Where we get our news- You know, there was time when I would turn on the computer and look at CNN.com to see what the day's important news was. Now, I just go to Twitter and see what my followers are tweeting about or glance at the trending topics. So much has changed, in such a quick period of time. There was a point in time where reading the newspaper or watching the television would inform me of what was going on the world. Now, I just look at Anderson Cooper's tweets on my Twitter home page and see what important news he has linked to. And if that fails, then I can always see what President Barack Obama's (or his trained PR professionals) is tweeting about. Times have changed and I have found a more appropriate way of keeping myself informed.
2. How we meet and stay in touch with people- In high school, I went through a huge transition when my best friend moved back to Canada. I was devastated because at that point, the only way I could use the Internet to contact her was through e-mail or instant messenger. Then, Facebook swooped in and saved our friendship. Through Facebook, we have been able to keep in contact with each other and see how our lives have changed over time. Not only through Facebook chat, but with photos, videos, notes, etc. In addition, I have befriended distant relatives from all around India on Facebook. How cool is that? I can keep in contact with people I've related to without even meeting them. Social media has seriously shrunk the size of our world. Not just through Facebook, but even with more interactive outlets like Skype.
3. What we reveal- I think my start in the social media realm was activating my Xanga account. I started blogging in March of 2004. Little did I know that I would keep this blog for 5 1/2 years! Now, my Xanga is primarily used as a emotional outlet of sorts. I used to pour my heart out through elaborate journal entries and my readers (mostly just people from school) would respond and relate to what I was going through. It wasn't quite as embarrassing as talking about my feelings out loud, but through social media, I was able to be myself and not feel the need to hide anything.

Social media is an ever-changing field. I hope to try my hardest to keep up with it as much as I can. Because the truth of the matter is, social media is the future, not just for PR, but for the world in general. It's inescapable.

Ride the Wave

Since my recent annoyance of Facebook and their need to add unnecessary features, I have been looking for a new outlet for my social networking needs. While researching for my interest group, I came across Google Wave. I am unbelievably excited about this compilation of the greatest hits of social media. For those of you that don't know, Google Wave is Google's newest social networking site. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client ( Mashable). I believe that Google Wave has the potential to win over my heart. Unfortunately, Google Wave hasn't been released to the public yet. It's only been released by invitation and those have mostly gone out to developers to help work out glitches. I have been avidly using Mashable to figure out Google Wave has to offer to the social media realm. The coolest extension I found was:

Twave- a Twitter extension for Google Wave. This basically embeds a Twitter feed into your Google Wave page. It has the capability of doing everything you would normally do on Twitter, except you can do it from Google Wave.
Google Wave also has a "playback" feature that allows you to playback a conversation from the beginning. This feature can also be used on Twave, so users can see what order their followers tweeted. How awesome is that? Not just for Twitter, but in general. I mean, I can't even say how many times I tune out of my Facebook chats and then find myself super confused when I deign to pay attention again. With this feature, I can playback from where I tuned out, and catch up on all the excitement.

I think Google's decision to join Twitter instead of try to work against them was smart. As of now, I don't have any complaints about Twitter, so it will be nice to see the two as a collaboration. Twitter is still growing and with Google Wave's capabilities, I think the two will go far together.

This is only one of the many extensions that will be coming our way from Google Wave. I agree with Mashable , Google Wave has the potential to be a "game-changer" in the social media realm. I can only hope that it can live up to all the hype and take the world by storm.