I just had this random unfinished thought about social media. Though I’m not really sure what social media really is.
I suspect that newspapers were the first “social media”.
Then radio.
Then TV.
Then the Internet in all it’s various forms and applications.
Now I’m sure thinking of say TV as social media doesn’t make any sense whatsoever today. But once upon a time I think it really was a way everyone felt connected and unmeshed in the social fabric. I’m talking the days of 90% of all TV’s watching “I Love Lucy”.
After a while the cool factor of the various mediums just wears off. Advertising on new social media… and again, thats whatever social media really is… likely works at first, simply because the new media is cool. But after a while, I think it fades.
But a cool magazine ad, I’ll look at. Or a cool radio ad I’ll listen to. The Superbowl ads are legend.
It’s what Seth Godin talks about in Purple Cow. Something so interesting you just have to look at it.
The medium itself can be the Purple Cow… but only for a limited time. After that it’s just another medium.
Once upon a time blogs were amazingly cool. Simply because they were blogs. You could write about anything and people would read them. Now there are like 70,000,000 blogs and… well… yawn.
Anyway, as I said, this thought is random and unfinished.
