Hot Topic - Social Media, Micro-Blogging, MicroMedia

There is an interesting stream of consciousness occurring right now regarding social media, micro-blogging, and MicroMedia.  Check out these blogs and posts to get caught up on the action:

• MicroMedia Trendwatch at Web Strategy by Jeremiah
• When Less is More and More is Less at Micro Persuasion by Steve Rubel
• 3 P's of Personal Social Publishing by Peter Kim
• Platform Convergence Enabling the 3 Personas at Marketing Excellence by Eric Kintz

These blogs seem to capture the essence of this technical evolution in digital connectedness. 

At the core of this trend is the more fundamental driver of human connectedness.  We are social and relationship-driven beings.  These relationships and the frequency/depth of our connectedness exists on a continuum.  At one end, we have very deep, "carbon-based", 1-on-1 relationships.  These relationships are our anchors.  At the other end, technology has allowed us to be connected in a lighter way to a much broader community.  Facebook and blogs gives platforms to shape our public personas and create multidimensional channels of communication.  But engaging through each of those platforms take time (away from other endeavors) to develop, grow, and maintain.  Twitter gives us the ability to accelerate our connectedness.

I find myself in general agreement with the blogs listed above.  However, because we are social beings, I believe they missed the 3 R's of social media:

• Real:  As people are searching for greater connectedness, they want reality.  They will want to know you and me.  They will willingly share themselves.  There will be less patience for fakes, frauds, or companies just trying to push another product.
• Relevant:  Technology that speeds the cycle of relationship building is nice, but the content will need to be relevant to peoples lives.  The speed of communicating will lead people to communicate too quickly with thoughts, ideas, and observations that have little meaning to impact, shape, change, or improve lives. 
• Responsible:  Most of us in this realm of social network are striving to build relationships.  Hence, we need to "leave the place better than we found it".  We have an inherent responsibility to work toward improving lives and society.  The speed of communication could lead to carelessness that creates irreparable harm.

Here is a Twitter post (original story) from about the I35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis that demonstrates the 3 R's in action.

What do you think?

Comments

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[Victor Howard]

Hehehe. No problem, Eric. I answer to both and have been called worse...

[Eric Kintz]

I meant Victor of course.... It's still early morning :)
Eric

[Eric Kintz]

Great follow up post Howard! Good to hear from you
Eric