“What is the Internet Anyway?”

Before you read the rest of this post, please, watch this video. (Thanks Rich for sending this to me last week).

I can’t stop laughing at this video with Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric. I love the commentary about the @ symbol; especially Katie drawing it with her finger in the air.

Ok, so seriously, why is this video worthy of a blog post?

Can you recognize the same conversations being held today? It wasn’t to long ago that many news casters were saying:

“What’s this Twitter thing?”
“How do you tweet someone?”

Do we see the trend here? Once skeptical of email and the “massive computer network,” America’s top news organizations didn’t even know about the internet. Now, they couldn’t do business without it.

Disagree if you will, but I believe that “social media,” and in particular my favorite, Twitter, is doing for our generation what the internet did 15 years ago.

Case-in-point:

• Every late-night talk show that I watch is using Twitter or Facebook to communicate with their audience. This morning on my drive into work, the morning show I listen to was using Twitter to ask  their listeners  to respond to a particular segment – all in real time.

• The most respected news organizations in the world use Twitter to communicate.

• Job seekers are finding jobs by leveraging their connections on Twitter.

• No more sitting on the phone going through the maze of automated hell. Customer service departments are leveraging Twitter to respond quickly to their customers. See a personal example in my own life here.

• Min Xuan evens goes as far to say that Twitter changed her life. P.S. love the 5 stages of Twitter acceptance slide.

When talking someone, I can immediately tell if they understand the power that Twitter has or if they still think it’s a colossal joke or waste of time.

I could list many more useful examples of how Twitter is changing (and has changed) communication, but the point of my blog is not to try and change your mind on Twitter. However, I do want the image of Katie Couric, and her initial conversations about the internet, burned into your brain. So that the next time you start to make fun of Twitter or brush it off as a waste of time, rethink how the internet has revolutionized our lives.

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