Rameez Nooruddin

Social Med... [slam, thud, thwack]

The Wikipedia's long, boring definition of Social Media:

Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.

I know you didn't read that. Most people don't. In fact, I didn't read it either (thanks to the pleasures of copy-paste). So why didn't I read it? Because I've seen countless number of definitions, explanations, studies of origin, growth & other predictions... and chest-beating war cries on Social Media. It takes the form of blog posts, tweets & every other inch of space on the interwebs. Heck, even on TV and newspapers! Like The Matrix, it is all around me. Escape was near impossible.

Now I do not hold any grudges against new technology but shouldn't we all draw a line on the mindless chatter? A LoC (Line-of-Control) where we say Enough-is-Enough and end the discussion. [woof! lots of Indian buzzwords in there.]

Buzzwords are only passwords to increase web traffic. Yea, it is one of those SEO thingy. I admit there are some really insightful articles on the subject and intelligent people who can do wonders for your business. But they are a rarity.

Do we really need another 10-point article on how to "increase brand equity using social media"? [I coined that title now. If you happen to have written a kick-ass article with the same title, I didn't mean to insult you. It is only an example for illustrative purposes.]

Social Media isn't the only buzzword that is being abused. Here are some others:

1. Recession: Yes, it's the most abused words these days. So much so that it has become fashionable for celebrities to be associated with recession.
2. Innovation: This one used to be a much coveted word a couple of years back when reducing the size of the cups near the coffee machine was an innovative way of cost-cutting. Ask me and I'll tell you that it was just a cheap trick.
3. Social Networking: Closely related to social media and therefore has now been amalgamated to the latter. Another reason this word is not used very frequently these days could be the similarities with social notworking.
   

But when it comes to what irritates me the most, social media takes the cake. Now only if I could throw a shoe at Social Media.