In the not too distant past I thought social media was a waste of time. Useless dribble exchanged between teenagers. People tweeting what they were eating for breakfast. Popularity contests to see how many Facebook friends could be accumulated. As far as I was concerned social media was a big waste of time for the most part. And then I met Greg Tirico.
Greg is a bit younger than I. Well, actually quite a bit younger. He is from a generation that grew up with electronic communication gadgets. To him social media is as normal a way of communicating as picking up a telephone. Greg and I became buddies through work. He kept telling me I should take off my blinders and have a look at social media. But I resisted. And I resisted. Upon learning I was entering a new hobby in a big way, model railroading, Greg convinced me it was the perfect time to have a go at social media. Alas, this blog was born.
It is two years later, Greg is now Director of Social Media for Sage, and I have come to fully appreciate social media. No, I don’t tweet that I am eating Captain Crunch (with Crunchberries, of course) nor do I even have a Facebook account. My engagement in social media revolves around the many forums devoted to model railroading. Oh, what a wealth of information. Ask a question, get an answer. And another answer, and another, and another. It is so cool there are people around the globe so willing to help. Without social media I would have been limited to model railroaders with the same zip code as I.
Greg was right two years ago and I suspect he is right again today when he sent me a message about Google’s announcement. He said…
HUGE announcement from Google today. They are not saying it directly but they just went for the Facebook jugular and released a full-on social network. I’ve watched the videos (access is slowly rolling out) and, honestly, I think they just built a social network for you.
Take a look…
