Evaluating the success of Social Media
December 19th, 2006 by Lloyd Gofton
I was interested to read Rick Wray’s Guardian story on the social networking bubble bursting.
The story relates to the cancellation of the Upload 2007 conference, which would have focused on the development and delivery of personalised content, due to lack of interest.
To be honest, I don’t believe the cancellation of this event necessarily points to a slow down in social networking. It could have more to do with a lack of understanding in Europe, as confirmed in the piece. Even if that isn’t the case, event organisation can be tricky at the best of times so there maybe many reasons why this event failed.
However, I do believe these questions need to be asked, and we should welcome an open and realistic debate on the future of social networking and, for that matter, social media. We should also consider that those closest to social media are not always the best judge of its successes or prospects.
On reflection, 2006 has been a landmark year. As Antony Mayfield points out, Google’s end of year Zeitgeist shows 8/10 of this year’s top searches are web, if not social media, related and we’re all Time magazine’s person of the year for using the Internet.
Very nice, but just as we shouldn’t read too much into the cancellation of an event, we shouldn’t get carried away with the perceived successes either.
2007 is sure to see a great many developments and perhaps even a new label for the sector, but isn’t that par for the course? Shouldn’t social media, by its very nature, continue to evolve and progress? If that means certain elements are improved or lost, so be it.
Perhaps I’m too close to it…
