Ian Barbour Social Media Revolution Response

Eric Qualman “Social Media Revolution” Response


In Qualman's recent work “social media revolution” the newly video featured on youtube, argues that social media is a revolution that is great for business and people alike. One thing that Qualman repeatedly implies in his video is that it is largely believed that social media is just a fad. My own view is that social media such as face book and youtube are in a lot of ways a revolution, they have changed the way information is transferred. For example, if there is interesting news you don't have to buy a newspaper or even look it up online, as mentioned in the video the news will find you. Another example is if there is a new movie out that people are interested in seeing they don't have to listen to the people who are paid to get you to believe the movie is amazing. Just a simple “Avatar review” typed into google and they can read endless opinions from fellow movie goers. Overall this will improve how the customers are treated because the name of the game will stop being good advertisement and it will start being a quality product with quality service. One area that I disagree with Qualman is that he believes that a large group of people believe social networking is just a fad. All of the people who I have talked to about the issue have understood the incredibly large audience and growing popularity and they understood social media was there to stay. However many of these people I discussed social networking with believed it was irrelevant to society and was just a new way for teenagers to talk to one another. Although it could have been what Qualman meant by using the word fad I would not consider fad to be the right word to describe the ideology of social networking doubters that I have ran into. Overall, I thought Qualmans “Social Media Revolution” video was a informative and powerful video, despite a few nit pickings I found with the it I still think it's general message holds true. Just the fact that I am posting this on a social networking site not for my friends, but for my college class shows Qualmans point is valid and social networking is taking a huge impact on how life operates.

By Ian Barbour