Tweety tweet. The midterm post!

Aight, so today I’ve gotta talk about how media is changing out lives.  So naturally, me being me, I’m going to stick to one thing and strike at it until I get my point across.  Or until I’m bored.  Likely one of these things is going to happen.  The question, of course is, what form of media will I pick?  Here, let’s let an image do the talking.

 

That’s right.  We’re gonna focus on social media tonight.  Now, let’s set the record straight, because I realize that my image seems a bit mean.  I have no issues with Twitter.  How people express themselves is up to them.  Me being a downer, however, I can’t help but point out that there really is no need for people to give constant feedback about the minutia of their daily lives.  No, Sarah Connor, I don’t care about how the T-130x almost murdered you the other day.  I have Youtube to watch and Facebook posts to like.

 

Alright, let’s cut the snarkiness a little bit.  Social media in all of its forms is great, and Twitter certainly has its edges.  For example, we have been able to track the national mood of the US through twitter.  Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking, ‘well, why is that such a big deal?’  And to this I reply with a solid “look at the big picture!”  The advertising potential on this alone is huge, and it’s already being taken advantage of by small businesses all over the place.  Now, direct advertising on Twitter  isn’t as of yet very practical.  But let’s look at this guy, goes by the name of Curtis Kimball.  So, this guy has his creme brulee cart, and some stranger walks up for one of these delicious foods.  As it turns out, the guy found out about it on Twitter.  So our main man, Curtis, sets up an account and now has over 5000 people paying attention so they can know where to go on a given day for some food!  It’s advertising with absolutely no overhead!  And of course, it’s not even limited to twitter, as Facebook, blogging, and even Youtube are being used for this sort of advertising.

 

So yeah, alright, that’s cool and all, but what about the bigger picture?  Well, kids, let’s look at revolution.  Tunisia used social media to keep the flow of information running to the rest of the people of its country during the revolution that occurred there.  And in Saudi Arabia, while certainly we haven’t seen anything of a revolution yet, protest is becoming more widespread as information is much harder to disguise with the advent of social media such as twitter and Facebook.  So we’re starting revolutions with just social media!  Well… really, oppressed countries are, but we could too if we really wanted to.  Hrm….

 

Alright, so naturally the politicians see the value in this too.  Oh look, President Obama has a twitter.  Now, I don’t expect you to click the link.  I don’t expect that the people here are one political party or the other, and I certainly don’t subscribe to one person’s political beliefs over another.  But you can’t deny the fact that this is huge.  The ability to get information instantly to an audience of millions of people with only about a minute of your time taken up?  Amazing!  Oh and guess what?  Republicans are in on it, too.  Evidently, they noticed how successful Obama’s 2008 campaign used social media, and they jumped on the proverbial bandwagon.  And you know what the best part is?  Thanks to the feedback of people around the world, people are voting in higher rates than ever before!

 

There are lots of innovations in the world of social media today, and all of these have played a big part in many facets of the world, from advertising to revolution.  I suppose now, instead of saying “viva la revolucion”, we have to say “viva la twitter!”