I could write a long post about the above chart.
But that picture is worth a thousand posts. Instead, I direct you to an analysis of the Dutch Tulip Bubble and Crash. Full a longer read, download Dutch Tulip Mania: The Social Politics Of A Financial Bubble. After you read it, ask yourself, should Facebook really be 50% of all the time we spend on the Internet? In light of all the other things we could be doing to research, fund raise, advocate, communicate….? Should Groupon really be worth over ten billion dollars in light of what happened to Blockbuster, Etoys.com and Enron? Is Zynga really going to scale or will we grow tired (exhausted) of social gaming?
I’m not advocated quitting Facebook or Tweeting. But I am suggesting you put the following throttle on your zeal for the unfiltered: If social media went away tomorrow, will your ability to help others decline? That’s the acid test for what you should invest your time in when it comes to social media.
Unless you haven’t reconnected with old friends, high school mates and other such Classmates.com-ish type hookups. If that’s the case, you have a few hours of productive work ahead of you. And if you check your status/profile every ten minutes to see if someone responded to your last post, I’m aiming this missive squarely at you. PS: If you bought secondary market shares of Facebook, I’ve got some land I’d like to sell you. #JustSayin
