Facebook Fading?

From The Conversation:

This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most pervasive of all social networking sites. Young people are turning away in droves and adopting other social networks instead, while the worst people of all, their parents, continue to use the service.  

As part of a European Union-funded study on social media, we are running nine simultaneous 15-month ethnographic studies in eight countries. What we’ve learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried. Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things.  

Instead, four new contenders for the crown have emerged: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.

Old Technologies

The object of professional communications for artists is to deepen or strengthen my relationships and a prime concern is to stand out. But whereas not so long ago it was the new technologies that were helping us to achieve these objectives, now I find it easier to stand out and warm hearts with telephone calls and hand-written and drawn notes.

Since reverting to these old forms of corresponding—particularly to important clients/customers/friends—I have been deluged with comments of appreciation and it pleases me enormously to know that my extra efforts are appreciated.

Today, the unsolicited correspondence that fills up your email inboxes are “junk” to some, valued reading to others; and they no longer only come from corporations. Now everyone is creating promotional communications, advertising their lives and activities via Flickr streams, blogs, newsletters and via social media. Consequently, it is hard to stand out, and hence my reversion to old communications practices to achieve that end.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media

From Mashable / Social Media: If you click Here you will go to a page where there are almost 300 features, galleries and how-to articles to help you understand the social media digital universe. Each feature is a post. The site is an aggregate resource of topics that are grouped for your convenience; some specific social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) have whole sections devoted to them. Other topics of particular interest include music, videos and photos, geo-location services, education, privacy and safety, social good, activism and government.