A Comment on CNET's "Social Media's Bubble Burst"

Caroline McCarthy points out on CNET today that with the burst of the economy so too may come the burst of the "social media expert's bubble." Well, I actually hope that's a wee-bit true. Here's why in my comment on her post:

Yes, those "social media strategists" and "experts" who Twitter and love the word "widget" are a dime a dozen....they also focus entirely on the wrong thing (and so does most of the media)...which is to say "social media" is not a technology or a "space" or a "there"...and to say its "media" is kind of a misnomer as well.

Social media, rather, is merely evidence of the rapidly changing models of behavior, consumption, communication, power, work and entertainment. It is understanding social media in terms of the underlying macro-trends and applying them to new models that is the ultimate task of "experts." That my own title contains "social media" in it has always been much to my chagrin and I have long touted that this unfortunate epithet has a shelf-life. I am not interested in widgets and shiney gadgets....I am interested in behaviors, trends and new models of business that will result from the undeniable shifts that have and will continue to occur.

And finally, as the Web is iterative and will continue to shift...what we know as a digital/web experience today will be very different in the (near) future, particularly with data portability coming to the forefront of social computing. DP will change the face of internet computing. The real social media "experts" in my opinion? The champions of VRM...


And finally, social media isn't a silo within the digital marketing world-- it is (will be) intrinsic to marketing strategy going forward. Its molding it, changing it...why? Because THE WEB IS SOCIAL.

Note, I use a lot of ellipses in my commenting.