In a word, "no".
At least that is what I think to myself when I log into Yahoo and the first thing they want to know from me is if I have anything to share.
Why would I necessarily have something to share with who knows whom? One supposes one should occasionally cooperate with their transparent attempts to collect data on oneself, since they do provide a free email service that one uses much.
But I just can't bring myself to do it.
Claims that social media will not only increase exponentially in popularity, but will "take over the internet" and become "the marketing venue of choice for everyone" are, in my opinion, vastly overstated. I think social media is a fad. A big one, but a fad nonetheless. I predict that in five years people will be wondering what all the fuss was about, and will be using an enhanced web to do everything they want, but without all the needless information sharing. Facebook will be considered lame. Sharing inanities with nonentities will be considered lame. Only the lame will be using social media. There will be no new paradigm. People will want to keep their information to themselves. Yes, even young folks. Note: my kids are already tired of Facebook (hint: SELL!!).
This blog obviously is a form of sharing. But the blogging paradigm has much more long-term potential than Facebook. This is because blogging, while a form of self-publishing (and a kissing-cousin with the rest of social media), offers an attraction found neither at Facebook nor Twitter: in a blog, you can actually complete a thought. Inanity is in general not viewed favorably in a blog. The potential for interesting content (and the fact it is not--present company excepted--controlled by one company) is what gives the blogging paradigm a chance at longevity.
Did you say "Twitter"? Ask not--the bell tolls for it. Twitter (and anything Twitter-like) is going to be about as popular in five years as leg warmers are now. There will be no re-tweet of Twitter, only a long day's journey into night.
Marketers of course will claim to lament this. I believe they will be secretly very glad to see social media diminished, as I predict they will soon come to see they cannot utilize it for long-term effective marketing anyway.
The main reason for this is: as soon as people get the sense that a marketer is "watching", they run screaming in the other direction (unless they have given specific permission to hear from that marketer).
I do believe marketers have the right to try and reach their customers any way they can. I do not believe they will ultimately succeed in doing so via Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately, marketing in the social media world will have a creep-out factor that will outweigh the potential for reach.
Finally, email marketing will remain. Many who now use social media will let their social media involvement lapse but retain their email addresses. This is because email is the most useful boon to humankind since humans discovered they could get in out of the rain. Folks will not be able to survive without it.
Now, if I have managed to share enough. . .good evening.
