DISQUS

Michael E. Rubin · 1 year ago

Jake, I cannot tell you enough how much I agree and am glad to see this post. Every so-called social media expert out there needs to read it.

The reality is that "we" (the ones using blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.) are in the extreme minority. I've had more and more conversations with people who are not "in the industry" and the eyes still continue to glaze over even when I talk about blogging.

"The 'innovation' we're currently seeing take place is 'adoption'." Absolutely goddamn right.

Johnsveitch · 1 year ago

The social web is a network of volunteers. Most people even after they have joined social networking groups fail to see the point of being there. They never get engaged enough to find people like themselves, they don't bother to read posts, they don't get to know who the other people are, and they NEVER post themselves.

To get any benefit out of social networking YOU have to do things yourself. Since this is a choice you make, you have to choose to do more work. Only after making that choice can you discover, people, topics, places where your engagement is a useful addition to your day.

So those who are very successful in using social media are about 5% of those who choose to participate in the first place. About 15% find some benefit but never get deeply involved. The other 80% are the long tail, "I joined but I never used it much".

I quote LinkedIn because my numbers there are fairly solid. LinkedIn is the premier business network on the Internet. More than 7000 New Zealanders are members. (LinkedIn told me 10,000 two years ago.) The median number of connections of the people that can be found is 5. BUT fewer than 3000 people are findable, the rest have 0, 1 or 2 connections and effectively absent.

The "information super-highway" is yet to arrive.

Mark Schoneveld · 1 year ago

Beautiful exercise, Jake. Thanks for sharing. I bet that's one that produces breakthroughs a lot, but also gives you a real launching pad for discussion. Love it.