Top 3 takeaways from Socialnomics

First Takeaway - Social Media Saves Time and Effort

As I read through the book , I tried to relate my views of social media (which essentialy amounted to social media being little more than a waste of time while browsing the web), to the real world examples of how/why social media sites are time and effort saver tools in daily life. The example of Sally Supermarket was an illustration of such capability. Having lived in India for many years I can say from my first-hand experience that seeking and delivering such advise as demonstrated in Sally Supermarket example is a regular practice in social circles within Indian communities. Since communities are densely populated and close-knit, its common for people to regularly consult their neighbours and friends on such topics. Social media brings this capability to a global scale. There is no reason for the person who advises you to be living in your community. They could be living half a world away and still share their experiences in near real-time.

Second Takeaway - Social Media Democratizes a Conversation

Barack Obama secured a landslide Democratic victory during the 2008 Presidential elections. This victory was attributed in large part to his campaign's capability to connect with and rally the younger generated voters. They were successfully able to have a 2-way conversation through social media and take regular pulse of what voters were thinking. Obama's victory was a fine example of how politicians can fundamentally change the way they communicate and connect with American voters. Twitter and Facebook also had a significant role in overturning some of the dictator style democracies (eg. Egypt) recently. Twitter provided the a platform for people on the ground to communicate with the rest of the world. Even with the intenet blackout during parts of the protest, Google's Speak2Tweet service facilitated sending tweets by calling an international phone number and speaking the tweet words. This also provides further evidence that social media platform provides a chance for hte people living under oppressive regimes to have their voice heard not just by the governments, but by the rest of the world.

Takeaway 3: Data collected through Social Media platforms has massive Mining potential

Data collected as part of the social media interactions is extremely valuable in performing predictive analysis. Prediction of when an epidemic will hit or who will win the next elections can be performed much earlier and much more accurately using data collected from social media sites compared to any other tools that have existed in the past. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide the necessary platform for members to have conversations which when aggregated over the very large userbase provides an insight into questions that otherwise would requrie a tremendous amount of effort to analyze. Modern Data mining and analysis tools are fairly sophisticated. The combination of newly available data and more sophisticated tools allows for the capability to perform predictive analysis like never before.