What came first the arts or social media? Is one a bi-product of the other designed to make techno-geeks more comfortable and included? Is it a sign of a society in decline, unable to communicate but happy to interface? Is it the powerful marketing tool that is taking the office out into the cafes and streets of our towns and cities via laptops and pda's and so on and such forth? I've been fascinated by the concept of social media since an introduction to it by Lloyd Davis www.perfectpath.wordpress.com/ His language is rich and varied, full of words such as 'twitter' and 'tuttle', 'brain-dumping' and 'wiki' (well I think I get that one). I have followed Lloyd from flickr to twitter to strange and eerie spaces on the internet highways and byways that I would never have known exisited let alone visited and here I am still fascinated and frequently amused as it seems to me that the key to the success of social media is that it involves humour - such as the conference where delegates were given big pairs of pants to wear. This I like - flexible, non-office based, social and yes, as far as I can tell, it does involves people actually meeting in the real world not only in cyberspace. Geeky? very possibly but creative and artistic in a business like way.
I love facebook, a more visually creative peronalised email and if i could upload flyers for free on group pages it would be perfect. Working in the arts i appreciate getting to know a bit more about the people in my work-world, work-life is usually stressful with too much to do and not enough time to do it - using facebook as a work-tool makes 'information-giving' fun, playful, more creative and less onerous and it's quick. Or is that just because i now have broadband and am stunned by the difference to dial-up?
Recently I have stumbled upon 'netvibes ginger' which sounds good enough to eat - private and public pages where i can organise everything in one place, a more professional looking yahoo homepage and from where i can access my twitter and facebook accounts etc., not forgetting 'issuu' - a very smart social media site populated by architects and designers and people with an obvious bent for graphic design and visual art. So my horizons are expanding beyond the realms of my imagination which was once limitless but mortgage, work, children, real-life all conspire to contract it - maybe that's why I'm drawn to social media?
© artsmonkey, 2007
