What would you do without...

[Dorinda Duclos-Favors by Dorinda]

Twitter & Facebook?

On Thursday, August 6, 2009, Twitter was cyber-attacked and brought down completely for several hours. The effects of this attack lasted into Friday and still some were feeling the effects on Saturday. This outage, known as a "denial-of-service" attack also affected Facebook but did not cripple it like Twitter. You can read the whole story HERE.

So my question to you is this....we now rely heavily on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites to get our words out to millions of people. If you were to lose all social media tomorrow, how would you continue to get YOUR word out?

[Lindy Asimus]

Friendfeed.

[Dorinda Duclos-Favors by Dorinda]

That's still considered social media. That would be gone, too. Then what? No Twitter, no FB, no Friendfeed, no nings, nothing. How would you get your word out?

[Lindy Asimus]

You mean the internet is gone?

Hmm.

I'd have to open my veins.


Lindy

AHhahhhahahahaha!

[Dorinda Duclos-Favors by Dorinda]

and all the coffee would pour out of them!!

No social media which means it would go back to the way it was when it all began.....you'd have to pay for ads. Would you? And who would you target if you did? Or would you seek out all forms of free advertising?

[Lindy Asimus]

I don't get it - there has been social media all the time I've been online.

Started with Virtual Places and eGroups.

The very nature of the internet is Social.

Lindy

PS. I need another coffee

[Dorinda Duclos-Favors by Dorinda]

ok true, there were groups. But nothing like there is today. Do you think that the groups would have evolved into what they are today if it wasn't for the other SM outlets leading the way, so to speak? I know many groups that have fallen by the wayside simply because people lost interest. We've seen it happening with the ning groups. I'm wondering where Twitter, Facebook, etc, will be a year from now.

[Dorinda Duclos-Favors by Dorinda]

Oh and pour me one, too...

[Lindy Asimus]

Hmm. Not sure the groups have evolved at all. They are still there. Same as ever. Largely abandoned now for the next shiny thing.

Well of course Ning is one of those next shiny things. But really, the platforms don't matter that much. Getting a group of people who are active is what matters, no matter the platform. People are still people. What tools we use isn't going to replace that.

I would hope that a year from now there was no more 'add 10,00 followers' spam merchants but that's not likely to happen. Indeed, as more people get online who are not early or mid adopters, the intelligence levels are likely to go down ;-)

[Jim Owens]

I can remember the Bulletin Boards they were the forerunners of social media, but for me to join in it must off become more relevant, not the geeky back slash .exe nightmare pre windows & thanks for that or I'd be doing my old job. That's a nightmare.

[Lindy Asimus]

Much prettier now aren't they.


I still think a hyperlink is a Miracle.


Lindy

[Jim Owens]

Now how can I get a hyperlink in a real book?

[Jim Owens]

Oh I don't want to think about it. But yes we should think about what if.