Is Social Media Losing Its Shiny New Luster?

Aug 5th, 2008 | By Steven Hodson | Category: The Social Web

Does social media need to be polished up for another round? I’ve been noticing a slow moving trend beginning to find more and more followers. It isn’t something that will likely snowball into any great backlash movement but it is interesting to see happening all the same. The trend is that of mostly a few early adopters talking about how social media is becoming uninteresting or they are feeling overloaded that everything has to have social media contexts. Adam Ostrow from Mashable could be right when we were talking about this during the afternoon that it’s because there is nothing new going on as everyone is holding off for the two big conferences due in September.

He could be right about this and once the TechCrunch50 and DEMO08 conferences finish up news will start flowing once more and everyone will get back to normal. Maybe it is true that because nothing new is being announced until then all we really can do is rehash the same old stuff over and over again with the occasional news item to keep us on our toes. As hard as it might be for those of us in this space that write about all these shiny new things one has to think that it must be equally hard for startups busting at the seems with cool stuff to share.

While we all wait though to see all the new things that will spark all our writing juices there is as I said more than a few tech bloggers who are having a really hard time getting excited anymore – or at least for now – with the social media space. As Corvida from SheGeeks and I talked about last night on Discussion Point along with her post on her blog it seems like all the conversation is about clones rather than new and cool services:

All the latest sites and services are all the same to me. Clones. Clones that do one feature better than the original. Clones that don’t have any of the features that the original has. Clones that are playing catch-up and clones that should have never seen the light of day because the original was a dumb idea to begin with. There’s nothing to talk about because there really isn’t any “real”” news. Innovation is at an all time low and we’re all suckers for it because something is better than nothing. Well, screw that!

As well we have people like Robert Scoble who once said that the only way to stay in touch with him was on Facebook which then changed to Twitter but now he says for everyone to use email if they want to talk with him. It is amazing the change that can happen in attitudes about shiny new things in the space of less than a year.

Then today I read where Colin Walker; a blogger I have a high regard for, posts how he thinks much like Corvida that technology has lost its spark

It’s not just that the technology has plateaued, it’s not just that the conversation stalled but, somehow, that the social web has lost its spark.

We moan about the echo chamber and dream of social media ubiquity but once things get more ‘mainstream’ our precious corner of the web seems to become less relevant. We seek out friends who are not talking about the same old stuff but end up with a screen full of items we have no interest in.

I’ve spoken about balance on many occasions but it appears that a balance is almost impossible to achieve. Do we embrace the noise or just stop lying to ourselves and admit that the echo chamber is where we belong and is what brought us here in the first place?

When you tie all this in with the thoughts being expressed by Mack Collier who wonders if social media is overrated one has to wonder if indeed this is just pre-conference doldrums or if in fact social media is starting to lose its luster.

What do you think? Is this just a lull and we’ll all be back in form soon enough or is there something going on here?

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  • August 5, 2008 at 10:35 pm Colin Walker
    Personally, I've been straying in this direction for a while and I think it's evident from an under-current in a number of my posts over recent months. I don't, therefore, think it's just a summer doldrums things but we'll see what happens later in the year.
  • August 5, 2008 at 10:49 pm Sarah Perez
    Blame Scoble.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:14 pm Charlie Anzman
    Ditto Sarah. (Did I just ditto Sarah?)
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:23 pm Mona N.
    Not at all!! If anything, as more people get exposed, immersed (addicted?), more people are connecting, technologies / services are advancing to be the newest/greatet (ie: micro-blogging -> micro-blogging w/ options - location based + multi-media, etc.), mobile + desktop services/software/sites seem to be intertwining, and technology companies in general seem to be shifting to a more consumer driven one. If anything, I'm more excited about the internet and technology than ever!! :)
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:27 pm Candace Holly
    You're looking at wayyy too small a picture in that post. The people you are talking about are all tech bloggers. What you aren't looking at is the larger picture.A higher interest in technology and, new technologies are leaking into the mainstream. Maybe for the techies things are not as nice and shiny as they used to be but..for the rest of us social media is a "new frontier" that people are just beginning to explore.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:27 pm Robert Scoble
    I don't know about this social media thing but EA has a lot more fun with its shiny objects.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:28 pm Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
    Depends on who you ask. For those in the echo chamber (or just with their ear against it), I'd say so. For the rest of the world, I think you'll find that social media was never so shiny to begin: they have FaceBook or MySpace and that's it.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:30 pm Mona N.
    Stupid: (wow, that sounds rude =|) Did you read Shey's recent blog post on the echo chamber? It was a really good piece. Read it here: http://www.sheysmith.com/2008/07/30/i-chose-the-echo-chamber/ (Steven, sorry for hijacking your thread...)
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:31 pm Rahaf Harfoush
    What's going to happen when all of this becomes mainstream?
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:31 pm Steven Hodson
    @Candace - as with most of my posts this is purely to raise a conversation on something that I was thinking about
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:32 pm Charlie Anzman
    The only people that are getting jaded are the one that follow the same routine (online and offline) every day. Mix it up a little gang. It's healthy, and there's a whole new world here .... and Mona
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:33 pm Robert Scoble
    I find it funny that all of you are throwing critques around ON social media.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:34 pm Candace Holly
    +1 to Charlie and @Scoble - Don't point out the irony! ...It's not as funny that way :(
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:37 pm Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
    @Mona: Definitely not trying to be rude, I'm simply drawing off my experience with friends and family offline. They aren't tech people, but they are all web users and only a handful of them have anything to do with social media (and it's FB and MS). Even the tech people I deal with don't feel drawn to it.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:39 pm Robert Scoble
    Stupid Blogger: I heard EXACTLY the same thing said about personal computers in 1977.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:39 pm Marcel Ekkel
    well maybe a shakedown coming up via increased competition to get rid of the non value adding ones....
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:40 pm Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
    @Mona: reread & realized you weren't calling *me* rude. Doh! You can call me SB, or find my name which is hidden around here somewhere... To check my perspective, I looked over my FB profile: all but two friends are from my math & science magnet school. Other than one guy who actually works at Google (and you can't count him, he's in the chamber!), no one else seems all that involved in social media outside of FB.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:42 pm Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
    @Scoble: Wouldn't you say, though, that the speed of adoption and adaptation have dramatically increased over the past 30+ years? What previously took 5-10 years to become 'mainstream' is now taking a year or three.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:45 pm Mona N.
    SB: I hear you, but IMHO, Facebook and Myspace are slowly breaking in the masses. New Facebook, upgraded Myspace, incorporation of new services, apps, etc., :) Oh, and the iPhone. The iPhone revolutionalized the American mobile market, regardless of how buggy / over-hyped it is.
  • August 5, 2008 at 11:45 pm Robert Scoble
    Stupid: absolutely. The world is going faster now.
  • August 6, 2008 at 1:01 am Morgan
    twitter just hit USA Today. I think it's just getting started for the 99% who aren't in the chamber.
  • August 6, 2008 at 1:58 am Colin Walker
    @Scoble - if people have an issue with social media then, surely, social media itself is the perfect place to air those concerns as they are immediately placed in front of those who can do something about it. You wouldn't complain to an Apple customer service rep if you had a problem with McDonalds. I see no irony here.
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:03 am Robert Scoble
    Colin: you missed my point. If social media is so bad I'm sure there are alternatives where you could communicate your point of view more effectively, no? I guess I'm just getting tired of seeing all the social media talk coming through my reader and through FriendFeed today. Oh well, I know this storm will probably pass within a few hours. Even haters can't focus for very long lately. :-)
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:23 am Steven Hodson
    ah excuse me Robert but no-one in this thread expressed any kind of "hater" speech .. and neither was my post anywhere close to being in that vein. So maybe clarify your assumption
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:25 am Robert Scoble
    Steven: it wasn't this comment cluster or even your post I was talking about. There were a bunch of anti-social media sentiment that came through my reader tonight and I'm reacting to the group of things. Hater is probably too strong a word. Critic, or critical thought is probably more correct. "Uninteresting" is the word you used in your blog post. I guess I should have just said they were bored. I'm bored with this topic, so onward.
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:26 am Hayk Hakobyan
    i try to think of any online stuff w.r.t the real life (humans remain human even online). How has it been w/trad. media? We got newspapers then magazines then periodicalls then specialized magazines then specialized newspapers then what? perhaps one or more item? the rest is variations, improvements, derivations and AGGREGATIONS of those, right? Following those? yes, people get into new but there is saturation. So is it online. There is increase in following but the curve is saturating..
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:28 am Colin Walker
    To echo Steven, I am certainly not a hater and have been a huge advocate of social media and its possibilities. With regards to other avenues, they may exist but would not be as effective in communicating directly with those involved. And besides, what's a blog for if not to have your say?
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:31 am Robert Scoble
    I'm all for mouthing off on a blog. :-) I'm just bored. I should have hid this cluster and went on with my life. :-)
  • August 6, 2008 at 2:49 am Igor Poltavskiy
    Social media age is about 3-4 years.Probably,it's the time of first crisis.
  • August 6, 2008 at 3:13 am Hayk Hakobyan
    @Igor, I would rather call it a life cycle!
  • August 6, 2008 at 5:45 am Jonathan (Bad Robot)
    As a "newbie" to the social media scene, it hasn't lost it's luster for me. I started on FB just 4 months ago and I am just learning how to really get connected. I've gotten 20 friends and family to join FB and I have discussions with most of them daily. I think social media is still growing and will eventually be a part of everyone's online experience.
  • August 6, 2008 at 6:44 am Alexander van Elsas
    Steven, maybe you are seeing something similar that happens to people when they drink too much Coca Cola. It gets your sugar levels way up, puts you into hyper drive, but after a while the rush wears off and you slow down. You then either drink some more which leads to adjustments in your body that make you less hyper the more you drink. Or you do what is probably most healthy. Drink a coke when you are thirsty or really enjoy it, and stick to something healthier for the rest of the time.
  • August 6, 2008 at 6:47 am Alexander van Elsas
    I am beginning to believe that a lot of the pro-bloggers/breaking news type of bloggers have been drinking too much coke ;-) There are really exciting things going on in this world. But you don't have to race to the next "new" fad to see that happening. You can find it all over the place ;-)

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