Endoh’s Dungeon

Social Media, or sometimes known as “the new media”, has become such a publicity tool because it harnesses on the backbone of the “old media”. By which, I am referring to the primitive communication mediums. The main difference between the “old” and the “new”, is the level of participation from the readers. Gone are the days, where the receiving party can only soaked among the words and can do little about what is published. Instead, we are looking at the Web 2.0 platform which enables the receiving party to contribute and add information.

Is that what the social media is only capable of doing?

1. Social Media – the medium as an entity
Some may feel Social Media and Web 2.0 are two totally different issues. I would think so too, but it is the way Social Media is packaged in the facade of Web 2.0 that I felt both are closely related. Social Media as explained to me, involves almost every available media platforms that encourage interaction. With this understanding, I can only see that the progress of Social Media is heavily dependent on the advances of the Web 2.0 infrastructure. Why? Nothing much about other media platforms has been used in the definition of Social Media, except internet, except Web 1.0 & 2.0.

Chris Heuer wrote in Social Media Club, and one part of his article intrigued me. In his article he wrote that;

While the early days of the Internet talked about the Three C’s of Content, Commerce and Community, we have come to realize that this era of our evolutionary growth has it’s own Three C’s, which speaks more closely to the fundamental needs of society beyond the interest in the technology for its own sake. The “Greater Significance” of Social Media is a newfound understanding of the importance of Context, Communications and Collaboration.

Turning the focus back on Singapore, the Web 2.0 platform is heavily preached here (assumingly with the same 3Cs since the ideas here are copied versions), do we have the “Content”? At the same time when we are promoting the communication and collaboration in particular, good content that was part of the Web 1.0 structure seemed to have eroded into the sea. Given this, the context of our Social Media here is as simple as building a house without walls, bathrooms and furnitures. In a nutshell, emptiness!

My observation says, the manner in which Social Media has advanced is also painfully similar in the way Pyramid Selling did – one to many, many to all. As we also know from Pyramid Selling, the true beneficiary is the “one”, not the “many” and “all”. Therefore, not us.

2. The Impact on Education
As much as Web 2.0 is being carefully stripped, the true definition of Social Media is also being heavily debated. It’s only reasonable to question why Social Media is being taught in schools when there isn’t even a clear outline of what Social Media is in the first place.

When Social Media is not correctly defined, teaching the assumptious definition in schools and higher institutions will result in a falsehood that will go on to plague the industry. The immediate impact is as simple as bringing this falsehood into the working environment, creating another bubble based on the falsehood. Don’t ask me what should be the correct definition of Social Media. If even high-profiled individuals like Jeremiah Owyang cannot pinpoint specifically what the correct term should be, what do you expect from me – an events marketing person?

When so many events are organized surrounding this terminology, how many of these “organizations” even know what Social Media is specifically? I’m guessing, the truth is they do not have a convincing answer as well. If there’s no convincing answer to what Social Media rightfully should be, what propaganda are they driving? Again, it’s nothing more than a fashion statement in the world of geeks.

3. Open source, Open end
One of the characteristics of Web 2.0 social platform is the open source format which allows data to be uploaded, shared or changed easily almost by anyone. The popular open source applications we often come across include Friendster & MySpace which allow members to put up data about themselves. Even music and video streaming have been made easily available. On top of Google Video and Youtube, we also see newbies like SiamTube initiated by former MTV host Sonia Couling, following the ban of Youtube in Thailand.

On a separate note, we see the existence and growth of applications like About, Wikipedia, or even Helium. All these applications allow the general public to create a publication (or read as “writing”) to be made available through the database.

The ability to input our own data across the world is indeed a very delicious idea. This was something that wasn’t previously made available but very much looked forward to by countless geeks. Yet now that we are seeing this in action, it prompted us to retrace the progress and wonder how this ability has benefited us realistically.

4. Legitimacy & Protection
As much as I am happy to be able to publish my own writings, I cannot deny my worries about the legitimacy of data being transmitted and security over the internet. Right now, anyone can easily access the internet and provide information in many aspects. With that, it also enables anyone to also publish untruthful and misleading data… anytime, anywhere, anyhow.

Brian Solis wrote that, “As long as it’s embraced by people who believe in it and used it responsibly… what’s the problem?” Well, I feel this statement has already been contradicted by the countless irresponsible usage we see online these days. Isn’t that already a problem?

As mentioned previously, Web 2.0 or rather the Social Media platform now has embarked on an open source format. While this is applaudable, it does bring on the concerns of individual protection that one can get through such a medium. Take Windows Live Messenger for example, receiving a file can easily expose your password and identity. Then there’s Wikipedia, that has since took on the reputation of frequent “vandalism”. If that’s not enough, we still have plenty of hackings to talk about. On these, Jeremiah has it covered briefly here.

The ability for anyone to access these databases via this open source format has evidently caused a significant damage to what it was designed for. Not only corporate databases are at risk, personal identities and data are also highly targeted in many online hackings and thefts. As Walter pointed out to me last night through our private conversation, no corporate bodies will want to risk having their databases being accessed when placed on an open source platform. So, can Social Media be applied to a wider community which includes the corporate professionals? I would say, unlikely.




Through my reading on Social Media, I began to understand why I ended up with the same question many others are asking now. How “social” is Social Media? Faced with all the potential problems and risks of Web 2.0 that will plague every user including corporate implementations, we would have to develop a certain degree of filtration and restrictions. After all these, is “social” still sociable?

Interestingly, Social Media as promoted by events like PopOut didn’t actually used much of the Web 2.0 they believe in. Instead, it was still reduced to physical face-to-face networking. How ironical !?

Of course, I am grinning in my heart because the event still falls on the very basics of events management at the end of the day.