A perspective on social media and the internet

Consider this: the internet was a huge boulder dropped into the millpond of incumbent media from a great height and not surprisingly, created a bit of a splash. The wave was hyped until the money men lost their collective nerve when so many dot com offerings were so overvalued – anyone read Boo Hoo? - and dot com bubble burst. 

After that trough, fiscal hand-wringing and soul searching trying to decide what the internet was actually for, along came Web 2.0. Enough said. Then came a global downturn. 

So the peaks become less high and the troughs less deep, and logically, they will cancel each other out and the internet will take its place in the firmament of said incumbent media. 

The truth is, the internet is actually far more important than that, but the problem is that as it has been hyped so much from the start from those wishing to cash in, we’ve all become suspicious, over-informed and generally jaded.

We mustn't get too carried away, yet not be dismissive, however. "Print is dead", they chorus. Oh no it isn't. Only yesterday, I was talking with an old mate who had been selling advertising space to me for years, and is now very senior in what we used to call a Publishing House, but now refer to as Media Owner. 

Not only is print not dead, but ad revenues are going up year on year. CD sales are on the up, as the download generation want actually to see and hold something for their money, musical acts are still making "proper" albums from vinyl, and colour by numbers books for grown-ups – yes, you heard me right, - are selling well as the screen-fatigued seek alternative relaxation.

Let the internet take its place in the mill pond, let it be as useful as it can be, let good social media flourish and let it become as a very important part of all our lives as the parts of it we value most. But let’s keep it in perspective: it’s just another medium.