Social Media Is Not Going To Die Out

I read an article today that indicated that social networking giant, Facebook, was sued by a man claiming to own 84% of the company due to a contract he signed with Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg. According to the article a New York Court ordered Facebook to stop sharing assets. Facebook countered the allegations by saying the believed the claims in question are illegitimate.

What raised my eyebrow about this whole matter wasn't the lawsuit itself, but the rather one comment made about this story by a reader on the comment wall.

http://tinyurl.com/3yb2f9p

The reader stated, "Lol. If this destroys FB does this mean we go back to Myspace?"

A very telling comment. It seems that if somehow, the worlds largest and most influential social networking site was to somehow go under, people wouldn't abandon the concept of social media. Instead, as the above comment implies, they would be wondering, waiting--expecting, to be directed to another social media site.

Often times the criticism about social media is that it is a fad or that it is something that is on its way out the door. I believe organizations and public relations professions can go ahead and book the church--this isn't a one night stand. Social media will be of use to communicators for a long time. The public isn't thinking 'when is this stuff going to go away?' Instead they're thinking...'if this stuff goes away, we would still have a need for it--we would still look for places online to have anonymous or planned encounters with strangers or friends.

Interesting.