The Future Of Media: The Internet

"People go online to do many things," says early Internet pioneer Esther Dyson. "One of the reasons they go online is to create a presence. With Geo Cities, you had your presence in one place. With Facebook, you are distributing your presence to anyone who is your friend."

Dyson says this extends well beyond the cross-linking aspect of Facebook pages to include widgets and even real-time applications such as Twitter.

"With Twitter, people are distributing their presence incessantly. Personally, I think that is a little obsessive, but what people are really doing is collecting social interactions," she explains. "If we had a biological urge to spread our genes, now people have the means to spread their presence."
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So what's the future of the Internet? Well, technology, regulation, business models will surely be important factors, but if you look at what has really been shaping the Internet - both past and present - it is people. And some day, we may even send one over the Internet.

MediaPost Publications - The Future Of Media: The Internet - 09/23/2008

Sometimes I like to post an article just because it's good. This one's awfully good.

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Big-name brands booking ads on Facebook

With millions of users riveted to social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, big-name brands are venturing into the newly charted territory of social media advertising, seeking to unravel the real opportunities from the flurry of hype."They are reading about it a lot, their children are using it," said Ian Schafer, CEO and founder of Deep Focus, an ad agency that created Facebook campaigns for HBO, Coca-Cola and New Line Cinema. "And they are finding that the social media networks are too big to ignore."

Big-name brands booking ads on Facebook

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Traffic To Social Networks Bounces Back - 04/18/2008

Social networking sites appear to be breaking out of their winter downturn. After a two-month slide in traffic, Facebook bounced back by increasing to 35.5 million unique U.S. visitors in March from 32.4 million in February, according to comScore.Social networking rival and category leader MySpace also saw a traffic spike to 72.7 million after languishing around 68.5 million for the last three months. Even old school social site Classmates.com got a bump to 14 million visitors in March--up from 13 million the previous month, and 10 million in December.Blog networks also posted strong gains. Blogger climbed to 42.3 million from about 39 million, and Six Apart jumped to 13.7 million from 9.7 million. Bebo, acquired by AOL for $850 million in March, on the other hand, remained basically flat, increasing by only about 100,000 to 4.9 million.

MediaPost Publications - Traffic To Social Networks Bounces Back - 04/18/2008

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From MySpace to YourSpace - New York Times

Finally, we can point to the Web and say it's a mass medium. It's a reach medium. It's a frequency medium. It is a heavy medium.

The world’s largest social networking site, MySpace has grown far past being merely “a place for friends,” as its slogan states. With an estimated 110 million monthly active users, MySpace is undeniably a powerful tool for advertisers who seek reach and efficiency.

From MySpace to YourSpace - New York Times

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