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Social Media Trends

The future of social media will depend on the market for user-generated content, and the staying power of online life in general. Though churn rates are high for many social media properties, neither the web nor the internet are going away. Social media sites today might be like the Talkies of yesteryear, of perhaps some early broadcast soaps: embryonic examples of a medium steadily figuring out what it can do, as its builders and owners test it out in different markets.

The early days of homesteading online have past now, and it would be more weird now to post a personal ad in a newspaper than to join eharmony.com. Similarly, myspace.com has established its importance among youth as an extension of the self, as in "find me on myspace." And sites like facebook and youtube demonstrate that we can do much more with online social networks than manage our online profiles. As we increasingly use mass media forms (videos) and references in our daily talk and communication, and as we continue to share personal views with audiences familiar and strange, social media will re-shape economic, cultural, political, educational and other spheres of modern life.

Future increases in cost of energy, adoption of mobile social media, coordination of friends, groups, teams, and other social networks (including families) are likely as it simply becomes more convenient to use media for communication needs. And yet even as social media push the envelope of presence, immediacy, and touch, there's nothing like doing it face to face. We are all embodied, and every body wants some body, and to be some body for another. This might still be the engine of social media use. Time will tell.

The Web 2.0 universe is an engine of new modes of communication
Web 1.0: publishing
Web 2.0: I can publish too
Web 3.0+: we talk
Trends: the future
Future social media: some examples
Social analytics 2.0
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