How has Social Media changed our lives in 2009? | 3 biggest social media stories of 2009

In China it has been the year of the Ox, for the online community it has been the year of social media. Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have been grabbing the headlines left, right and centre, the world has become a smaller and more sociable place.

1. The value of Twitter hits $1 billion.

Twitter went stratospheric this year leading the way for micro-blogging. Twitter’s rocket-like increase in users peaked in September after a growth plateau in the latter half of the year. Market analysts suggest that the free media attention twitter has received is verging on £100 million pounds of advertising. Celebrities and Marketers alike have taken to twitter like a duck to water bringing them closer to their demographic. In a year where the world economy has taken a downturn and global warming is on the up, thanks to twitter, everybody knows about it as soon as it happens!
2. Facebook

Facebook again have had their fair share of media attention with the community reaching over 350 million (more than the population of the USA) and is proud to announce that it is still growing, in September of this year they also announced that it had a positive cash flow with shares rising 42% in four months. The big story emanating from Facebook this year was the acquisition of FriendFeed – the real time feed aggregator was bought by Facebook for $15 million in cash and $32.5 million in stocks. We are looking to the FriendFeed developers to be on  the brink of creating something that will revolutionize the Facebook experience.

3. People Power + Real Time Search

With the arrival of micro-blogging and real time search, the web space is filled with part time journalists keeping the world up to date with real time events.

The aeroplane accident in the Hudson river was reported first on twitter with passengers tweeting about the incident. Politics reared its ugly head in June with the questionable presidential election in Iran, Facebook and Twitter were rife with people updating the world with the situation in Tehran. Social Networking became the most popular hubs on the internet taking over “porn” as the most popular use for the internet.

Google and Bing have latched on to the real time bandwagon offering real time search results. Just last week Google announced the introduction of real time search results into their regular search results. Search Engines are now trying to include forum posts as well as social media to give the search results a more “socially accurate” result.