Facebook Corporation

We already know how social media has changed the way traditional media outlets function, but in what direction is it going?

The beauty of the internet is the complete freedom and equality it provides, which was cemented recently (for the near future at least) by a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) net neutrality vote.

However, even with net neutrality intact, we are still seeing the influence of money all over the internet. It is imperative for all businesses to keep up with social media to promote products or market themselves, and without an online presence they fall behind.

Facebook is slowly moving on from its original user oriented organic reach, to more ad based paid reach.

Their definition of the difference:

“Organic reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution. Paid reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post as a result of ads.”

Basically what this means is that Facebook is turning into a tool for big businesses to advertise their products to users. The vast amount of exposure Facebook can give sellers not only to millions of people at once, but specifically to people who may be more interested in their products, has turned it into a goldmine for big business.

Companies have to keep up with social media trends to stay popular and therefore stay in business.

As Jen Goldberg, a digital strategist for ad agency Wieden+Kennedy says in this VICE interview, “In the way that celebrities have to behave like brands, brands are having to behave like celebrities.”

However, these developments are not necessarily a good thing for users or for Facebook. People don’t like feeling like a commodity, and after a survey of users, Facebook has now begun curtailing ‘Overly promotional’ posts.

While sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google try to make the most of their influence and power for monetary gain, the less powerful and influential they become. They are digging up the very foundations upon which they were planted.

According to this article, the future of social media lies away from the giant corporations such as Google and Facebook. Wagner (no relation to Professor Wagner I assume) believes the future lies in smaller, more independent applications which serve more unique functions.

For example, Whatsapp, which Facebook recently purchased, for messaging, Instagram for photos, and Twitter for the news feed. “It makes more sense to focus each individually on a particular experience and make it as good as possible,” says Wagner.

The way technology develops will also play a role in how users interact through social media. You must wade through a plethora of pictures, news and updates on current social media and I believe smaller, more manageable applications like the one Wagner talks about are next in the future of social media.

 

Everyone Is A Media Outlet

I was given the task this week of taking notes for chapter 3 (Everyone Is A Media Outlet) of the book Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky for my social media class #penncomm268. The book looks (in great depth) at how new forms of media are affecting the way society works, and has so far been a very interesting read. Fortunately for me, this chapter was very relevant to my blog.

The chapter begins by telling a story about how local newspapers, and in the end all newspapers, didn’t pay heed to the up and coming game-changer that was and is the interweb. Their main concern was other forms of traditional media, and as Shirky puts says, “It is easier to understand that you face competition than obsolescence.”

“The Web didn’t introduce a new competitor into the old ecosystem… The Web created a new ecosystem.”

Next in the chapter is a story about something which we are beginning to see a lot more frequently. News emanating from the masses before forcing its way into mainstream media. The story from the book about a Senator’s inappropriate birthday speech would have never come into public consciousness were it not for the internet, and at the time, blogs.

With 58% of people owning smartphones (according to this survey from 2014), it makes sense for the news to come from the ground up. Corporations can’t be everywhere at once, and when news breaks, they will not be able to bring it into public conscience faster than someone already at the scene with a smartphone.

Shirky links the technological and cultural change we are experiencing now, to the one that scribes experienced in the 1400’s when Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type. When this happened, the scribes livelihood was rendered useless, and as Shirky perfectly puts it, “What was once a service has become a bottleneck.”

Jean Miélot, a European author and scribe at work. (Wikipedia)

We are entering a new age. The internet is the new movable type, and definitions such as ‘journalist’ must be revisited. Cultural lag is the only thing delaying us from experiencing the full power these new technologies are affording us.

I would like to end by using the first quote from the chapter, which summarizes the whole situation perfectly.

“Our social tools remove older obstacles to public expression, and thus remove the bottlenecks that characterized mass media. The result is the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals.”