Social media marketing | Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

What have you been reading here on Diary of a Webgal over the last 12 months?

You’re a hungry lot when it comes to Twitter and other social media tools.

Let’s look at the 10 most popular posts. They’re listed most popular to least.

1. Ten amazing, minimal WordPress themes

2. Instant Eyedropper for Mac

3. A guide to using Twitter

4. Stuck for tweet ideas? Need a cure for Twitter block?

5. Using Facebook and StumbleUpon to increase traffic to your blog

6. 20+ super cool websites to visit

7. Guest post: Foto Friday and how a Winnipeg photographer used social media as a gift

8. Guest post: Using social media to build your brand online

9. Attend social media seminars in Winnipeg 2010

10. Great links for learning about Twitter

Ok. I realise that there are lots of people who are not on Facebook and don’t care to be.

For those of us who live a lot of our lives online, Facebook has become de rigueur.

This post by Brian Solis really brought home to me how integrated Facebook has become with our online lives. Where it was once Google that we referenced, it is now Facebook.

It’s eye-opening to have such a shift laid out on your screen.

I strongly encourage you to read Brian’s post. For those of you not familar with Brian – he’s globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. He’s a bit of a demi-God in other words.

One of my new favourite people is Gerd Leonhard – a futurist. What a cool job title.

He spoke at an event in France early in 2010 to give his predications about the future of television.

He hit on a very interesting point. Could social networks be the new wave of broadcaster? We already use sites such as Twitter and Facebook to broadcast ourselves to each other.

Perhaps it won’t be long before we see a new ‘TV’ show broadcast only on Facebook.

As a web manager and internet fan it will come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that the recent comment from Prince – declaring the internet is over – made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

What is this dude on?

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the internet is well and truly not over. In fact, I would posit that the web has only just begun.

But like I said, it doesn’t take a genius to work this out which is why I’m so surprised at Prince.

Here is an artist so entirely out of touch with 21st century communication that I’m astounded he still has an active fan base – I guess we have Purple Rain to thank for that.

His comments left me wondering if dementia had set in.

Honestly.

No rational human could say things like: ‘I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music,’ and in the next breath completely diss technology. What is he thinking? Carrier pigeons will fly copies of his CDs around the world?

Get with the times little man.

First, I’ll admit that this is pretty much a duplicate of a post I made today over on the National Screen Institute’s website.

But not entirely.

I don’t think much of Google Buzz, ok?

I love Google, for the record.

The basic premise: Google wants in on the social media thang. Google Buzz is their trump card.

Or something.

This is my comment on the proposition, not the product.

According to Google’s official blog:

Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch.

If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.

So far I’m not that impressed with it – largely because I only use my Gmail accounts to log in to Feedburner, YouTube and a bunch of other Google-operated sites.

I’m also a prolific Twitter and Facebook user and don’t see the sense in adding yet another network to the list.

Sure, I can add my Twitter account so my tweets appear on Buzz but I’d rather folks just follow me on Twitter.

I can see the benefit for regular users of Gmail. Send mail and chat with your pals all in one place. Which makes sense.

Are you using Google Buzz? Let me know what you think.

Thanks to my friend, the wonderful Erica Glasier, for the illustration at the top of this page available under a Creative Commons License.

Apologies to those of you who read this link via my Twitter stream. This seemed like such a great article with so much food for thought I had to post it here too.

Noupe – a website I regularly read – posted an article about how the web might look five years from now.

The Future of the Web: Where Will We Be in Five Years? is an insightful look at emerging trends and some that are already sticking.

Some highlights include:

• There are a few unsurprising predictions such as the growing influence and use of social media (a term, some of you will know, I think is silly). What this means is social interaction on the internet will be an even bigger feature of the web spaces we visit.

• Our never-ending fight against spam and fraudulent internet behaviour may well increase but I don’t think we’ll ever really be totally safe from this stuff.

• As a chick who spends a large (some might say, excessive) amount of time online I heartily look forward to better and more online film and TV content.

• And Microsoft’s world domination of our PCs may be over sooner than you think. With Google set to launch a Chrome operating system we’re looking at a virtual online office as our operating systems move online.

This is all very exciting stuff. But as Noupe points out, predictions fly around the internet at the speed of tweets so there’s no telling what the future really holds.