It shouldn’t come as any surprise that thanks to social media, the gathering place to shoot the breeze, hang out, flirt a little, or just generally compare notes about how your Uncle Seamus’ carrots beat your colleague’s Aunty Bettina’s leeks in the local produce fair is not so much in the real world at the water cooler but rather through social media sites.
In a global survey by Alexa, as of December 2013, these social media sites took top dog position:
Facebook (colour us not surprised); QZone; V Kontakte; Odnoklassniki; Cloob and Drauglem.
Facebook is the dominant social network in in 127 out of 137 countries analysed.
Facebook has now 1,189 billion monthly active users, but it is growing less rapidly than before (it has added just 34 million active users in 6 months). 351 million users in Asia, 276 million in Europe, 199 million in US & Canada, 362 million in remaining countries. This according to Q3 2013 Earnings.
Active users as of January 2014 on various social media are: Facebook – 1.2billion; QZone – 623.3million; Google+ – 300million; Tencent Weibo – 220million; Twitter – 218million; Instagram – 218million and 4Sq at 8million.
Now I’m well immersed in the world of social media (for obvious reasons I hope) but these stats did jog me out of my little neck of the woods comfort zone to be sure – Cloob? Really?
When all is said and done though, I must say that I’m a little nostalgic. I recently received an article posted to me from a friend overseas – my address – ‘Blogista woman lurking at the water cooler, AquAid Water Coolers, Cambridge’- was handwritten. I pounced on it like it was platinum. A couple of days after someone e-mailed me this funny which sort of brought it home.
So, yes, it seems that social media is very likely the new water cooler, but I think I’ll stick with lurking around my local water cooler to catch up on the latest – before I truly become a ghost in the machine.
