Using a search that compares the world wide search volume on Google for new media, web 2.0, and social media, Justin Kistner of socialfresh states that “we’re in the 3rd Era of the Web and it’s The Era of Social Media”.
Kistner notes that the decline of Web 2.0 and the rise of social media are connected. Since Facebook has hit the scene, the original social media tools have peaked in usage: blogs, wikis, forums and RSS.
Social media has been very popular for news outlets to cover (more so than Web 2.0 and new media ever were), and while has been quite disruptive to established media outlets, those that are embracing and even reinventing themselves are doing well (such as the NYTimes.com).
Facebook is the site receiving the most interest in the “explosion” of social media. It is so popular that no other search term in Google beats the number of searches for Facebook. The closest search term Kistner has found to rival the number of searches for Facebook is the word “the”!
Social media is showing dominance in traffic and usage in addition to monopolizing search attention. Compete.com is also showing Facebook as the mosted visited website, above Google and Yahoo.
Kistner concludes that social media is the innovation to invest in for businesses.
Please see socialfresh for all charts, graphs, and more information.
