Does Social Media Imply Twitter and Facebook?

Simon's Tent

I thought I was splitting hairs yesterday. I was trying to make the point that admitting to not using Twitter and Facebook was the not the same as admitting to not using social media. Social media does, after all, take other forms. I did think this was a somewhat pedantic point to make, but then I was arguing with a self-proclaimed pedant whose Twitter bio gives their location as “My High Horse” so I wasn’t going to let that hold me back.

It seemed for a while that anyone making serious use of social media would likely be on Twitter. It has been such a fabulous tool for networking, conversing, sharing links and such like and it has long had a critical mass that makes it seem like given almost any interest you could connect with like-minded people and discover valuable information. I can entirely see why my interlocutor felt Twitter and Facebook are indicators. Continue reading “Does Social Media Imply Twitter and Facebook?”

This is why I just love Google+

Just the other day I re-shared a post from Tim O’Reilly. The post itself has (to date) had 283 comments and been +1’d 1482 times and been re-shared 728 times. If, like me, the person re-sharing the post has made a comment which indicates their slant on the original post that means the ecosystem of engagement and the range of views expressed is immense – I’m not skilled enough to garner those posts and analyse them but I do know they’re all recorded in one place, so you could search them out.

What I do know is that this level of engagement and the depth of comment that can be engendered on Google+ would not have happened on twitter – where the best one might have hoped to have achieved would have been a reference to a blog post you’d written with the comments (if any) stored on a myriad of blogs all over the place; and would not have happened at all on Facebook – where I’ve never observed any serious commentary occurring.

There’s really quality engagement and conversation taking place on Google+. I commend it to you!