Social Media

[Maggie/915]

From early networking in the coffee shops of the 17 hundreds to today and the Internet should we celebrate or fear this way of communicating.

I limit my activity to this site as it seems less about selling and more about sharing and developing a topic.

Maybe I am being naive.

Basically should we all join Six Townships and talk more generally about our area.

Plus Facebook, Twitter Etc

[threegee]

...

Maybe I am being naive.

...

 

Nonsense, you are being very astute!   It is about selling though - selling OUR town to the world.  One day we might just have a Bedlington.co.uk Charter - do you want to write it?

[mercuryg]

It's an interesting topic; I see social media getting a bad press sometimes. Of course there are people who use it to abuse, insult and exploit others, but the bigger picture is that this is very much the way ahead. I'm not a fan of Twitter, it is largely celebrities (or their publicists) keeping their name in the public eye - although it is can be useful for (often inaccurate) news snippets - but the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ play a large part in my professional life, as well as my personal one. In business terms it's vital, and Maggie has it right in that it is, in many ways, the digital age version of Word-of-Mouth.For example, I've picked up clients as far afield as Japan, Indonesia, Australia, you name it, thanks to one person telling another that I'm the man for the job. This business could not have been sustained without the internet, and without social media.

 

Yet, and it continues to surprise me, many major players - especially in the world of sport - have yet to realise its significance. I am, as many of you know, a massive Formula One and Motor Racing fan; whether you like it or not, F1 is one of the biggest global sports (or shows, if you like.....) of the moment. However, FOM - the company that controls the commercial side of things, Ecclestone's outfit - considers Social Media to be a 'passing fad' (those are Bernie's exact words) and rather than embracing YouTube as a source of showing snippets of exciting stuff, goes all out to take down anything that is posted regards the sport. Indeed, some years ago I was Editor in Chief of a sadly defunct F1 website (we were the biggest non-print publication related site in existence at one time); we used to have a 'live feed' from qualifying, with real time updating of the lap times. We got a visit from Bernie's lawyers, ordering us to stop, as FOM 'owns' the lap times until after the session has finished, and only licensed parties (at a massive fee) were entitled to show them. We offered to portray times 1/1000th of a second either way of the actual time; this too was prohibited. Why? We were broadcasting to people in Iran, Iraq, and many other countries where TV was inaccessible (and the internet actually illegal) for the benefit of far flung fans?

 

Only now, years later, has the sport actually realised that hang on, all these teams and drivers have websites.......get with the game Bernard, this is the 21st century!

[Maggie/915]

I do think all communication is good but things can get out of hand with the money motive and the abuse of individuals.

The details about us all on the net is another concern.

It hardly matters for old gits like me but people are giving so much away about themselves and then there are the people selling our data.