The Unforeseen Consequences of the Social Web

Written by Lidija Davis / January 25, 2009 6:39 PM

The social Web has given users great power: the ability to create and share content with people around the world - easily and quickly. The problem of course, is that power is often not compatible with effective and clear thinking. The thought that germinated in an instant can be immortalized in perpetuity on the Web.

With the extraordinary growth of the Internet and the interlinking of information that the social Web has brought with it, it's time to examine the footprints we leave on the Web as we move into the future that promises to "throttle the 'wisdom of the crowds' from turning into the 'madness of the mobs,'" as described so eloquently by Jason Calacanis.

Search Engines Are No Longer Enough

With Internet usage growing at a remarkable pace it comes as no surprise that comScore recently rated Google as the most popular Internet property in the world, attracting over 777.9 million visitors as of December 2008. Not surprising either is the growth of social and news sites.

According to Compete some of the top social sites attracted visitors in the millions during

December 2008:
FaceBook: 59 million visitors
MySpace: 59 million visitors
Digg: 33 million visitors
Twitter: 4.4 million visitors

This growth can be contributed in part to the media as they realize the benefits of instant access to an enormous well of information that the Web provides. As media folk are becoming increasingly tech savvy, they're realizing results from search engines are often lacking. In an effort to gain as much insight into specific topics they are now turning to social sites for research.

Read more here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_web_unforeseen_consequences.php