Innovation is one of the pistons that drives economic growth. Most of the developments that have propelled the United States into its position of economic dominance have been substantial -- light bulbs, steel, automobiles, radio and TV communication, computers, air travel, even the Internet. However, much of the latest stars of technology innovation seem a little less consequential -- social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. -- software that does not represent significant innovation ... more fluff than stuff.
Yet these developments are creating billionaires who believe that they are the new Titans of industry ... pleeeese! Can we call this cotton candy technology? The reason that these companies are stock market darlings is that they get tremendous revenue from advertising. Yes, old-line media companies did also prosper from ads ("Duz does everything"), but they also provided real value added with programming and reporting. Most of the value added in social networking companies is provided by the end users -- kinda like the early days of e-mail companies. Where are they today?
What I am saying is that social media companies, unless they can find a way of offering their users additional value-added other than just connections, will also fade into the background of the Internet ... analogous to the e-mail-only companies of 20 years ago.
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