There have been many predictions that TV is soon going to be replaced completely by social media – I’ve made such claims myself. The reality in the UK though does not seem to be backing this prediction up. The latest research from OFCOM suggests that we are actually watching more television than we did five years ago – it is up 3%.  Apparently the average person in the UK is watching almost four hours of television a day.

How could this be possible? How could the use of social media be sky-rocketing and our TV usage also be increasing? Do we have a lot more time on our hands? I suspect that many of us just have the TV on in the background and don’t really pay that much attention to it; I know that is the case with me. It has become a habit to switch the TV and it is more background noise than anything else. Even when there is a programme I want to watch I still have half my attention on my Twitter page. So maybe these figures from OFCOM are a bit misleading. Sure we may have the TV on even more than in the past but does that mean that it is going to stay that way.

I still feel that TV is on the way out; it just can’t compete with what is available on the web. I’m sure that the day will come when I forget to turn the box on and that will be that. I don’t really think that I’ll miss it; I’m sure this will be the same for most people. We might not consciously stop using television; maybe we’ll just forget about it. I know that every time I do go and look for something to watch on the TV I’m almost always disappointed and go back to the web.

It might be only a small front in the overall battle for ideas but North Korea has now turned to social media to further its cause.  It is not clear who exactly is responsible for the recent YouTube videos and Twitter Tweets promoting their cause, but it seems likely to be somebody in the government. We have so little information available about this country that the appearance in social media is quite interesting. The content though doesn’t really rise above a bit of unsophisticated name calling aimed at the US and South Korea.

The series of video clips available on YouTube are posted by an entity known as ‘Uriminzok’; apparently this means ‘our nation’. They show scenes of a country that seems stuck in a previous era before the cold war. If these were put out by the North Korean tourist board then they would certainly want to rethink their campaign. Some of the other videos are meant to be a bit satirical and aim to mock the US and South Korean leaders – they are pretty lame attempts.

It seems that the North Koreans want to tell their side of the story, and this has to be good. Maybe they have been given the short end of the stick, and maybe we are not getting a clear view of the country. From the videos that have been provided so far though, there seems to be little that is going to change people’s mind. Hopefully this attempt at engagement with the rest of the world will be a two-sided affair. That way the North Koreans and their government can get to hear about what the rest of the world thinks about them. One of the great things about the internet is that it can be used to allow people to escape whatever bubble they have been trapped inside.

A report in the Guardian newspaper this week reports that one in ten web users in the UK now use Twitter. This might not be quite as impressive as the statistics for people joining FaceBook, but Twitter is showing impressive growth; not only in the UK but around the entire world. In fact there are now believed to be 93 million people around the world who use Twitter. It seems to be in Asia that the biggest increase in Twitter accounts is occurring. It should also be remembered that these figures don’t take into account all those people who regularly use Twitter from devices like Tweetdeck.

Twitter is a bit like Marmite; either you love it or hate it. Many people just don’t get and even some famous Twitterers have given up in frustration because they no longer understand what it is all about. How can any meaningful conversations occur when you are only allowed 140 characters? And what’s with all the links? It can sometimes seem like everyone on Twitter is trying to sell something. Despite all this though there is a lot of fun to be had when you get into it. Otherwise why would so many people spend so much time using it?

Personally I have a lot of time for Twitter. It feels a bit more on the edge than Twitter and I like the fact that so many people just don’t get it. In fact it is really pleasing when famous people try to boost their careers by using Twitter, make a mess of it, and then have to admit that they don’t really get it. There is probably no other social media outlet where so many public figures have announced they are no longer going to be using it.

Recent research suggests that social media might be costing the UK economy billions of pounds each year. This news is sure to worry bosses and likely to irritate employees who feel that this might be used as an excuse to reduce their internet privileges. This study suggests that employees are spending a lot of time each day on social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter when they are being paid to work. If this lost productivity is estimated for all businesses in the UK then it really does lead to a huge amount of wasted time; this time is money as any economist will tell you.

It is likely that we can expect more crackdowns by business managers around the UK in the light of this news. A lot of businesses already block social media from the work computers, but this doesn’t stop people using their mobile devices. We can probably expect that some companies will increase their efforts to reduce the amount of time their employers spend on FaceBook and other social media sites during work hours. Maybe those clever people at FaceBook will invent an application that will alert employers when their employees have logged on to the site – it wouldn’t surprise me.

I feel that a lot of this worry about the effect of social media on the economy is grossly overrated. It assumes that if people weren’t using social media at work they would be more productive. I don’t think that slacking off is a recent invention, in fact it is this ability to slack off now and again during the day that keeps us productive. If people weren’t using this time on the web they would like spend the time staring out the window or catching a sneaky nap.

Was it only last year that some of us were practically begging for an invite to use Google Wave? How things change. Google has just announced that it is going to bin the whole Google Wave project. It seems that this next thing that was going to change the face of the internet was grossly overhyped. Instead of changing the online world it has almost been forgotten even before it was released. The problem with Google Wave was that while there was no doubting that it was quite impressive and innovative nobody was quite sure what it was all about.

I remember how excited I felt last year after getting my Google Wave invite. I felt like one of the chosen people about to set foot in a new land; I was going to be a pioneer for the first time in my life. Never mind that I was one of the last to sign up for Twitter and joined FaceBook the same time as David Cameron; this time I was going to be in the vanguard. I opened the application that first time and immediately realised that I had no idea why I would want to use it. I tried to remain enthusiastic and even looked at the tutorials, but after a couple of hours disappointment set in. I tried it again a few times, but had actually completely forgotten about it until I heard today that Google was abandoning it.

Google Wave reminds me of the 80′s band Sigue Sigue Sputnik. They were hyped for ages as the greatest thing to ever hit the music scene but as soon as their first single was released everyone knew they were crap. Many of us tried to force ourselves to like them but there was just not point to them – sort of like Google Wave.

At the moment it might seem that FaceBook and Twitter are untouchable. After all, FaceBook just announced that it is about to reach half a billion users – how can anyone compete with that? The fact is that when others have tried to compete with these two social media power-giants recently they have lost – even Google can’t seem to be able to do it despite their continued attempts. MySpace has failed miserably at keeping up with the big two and seems to be losing users almost as fast as FaceBook is gaining them. There is a lot of excitement about a new social media site called Tumblr though, and this just might be a serious contender.

Tumblr already has about 7 million users and apparently 25,000 new people are signing up every day. These are impressive figures, but very modest when you compare it to FaceBook and Twitter. On the other hand though, there does seem to be a bit of momentum behind this website. There are also a growing number of people who are becoming dissatisfied with the big two, and are just looking for an excuse to jump ship. If Tumblr can convince these people that they have something new to offer then maybe it really can hit the big time in social media. In many ways Tumblr does seem to be offering what the other two are also providing, but it has to be said that it does this in a very unique way.

I would love to see a new social media site enter the fray; even my granny uses FaceBook and this just takes some of the excitement out of the whole thing. A new frontier in the social media world could certainly help make life interesting again.

At the moment it is possible to use Twitter to link to pictures and video, but there are signs that in the future we may be able to see this form of media directly in the feed. This possibility comes about with the arrival of a new setting called ‘Twitter Media’. If you click this option on your profile it says that you will then be able to see the video and pictures posted by other people. It will probably be a while before the ability is a reality but it should certainly make a huge difference to how Twitter functions in the future. Mind you there has to be some worries that it could lead to even more sightings of the ‘white whale’; Twitter is already finding it hard to cope with normal traffic.

It is good to see that Twitter are looking for new ways to improve the site and if this is done well then pictures and video could be a real bonus. The link option is already there but many people fear clicking on these and just won’t do it in case their computer blows up or something. Actually having video and pictures in the stream would avoid having to leave Twitter and you could quickly decide on what you want to see and what you want to skip.

As already mentioned, the main worry has to be if Twitter would be able to handle this new addition. If it is going to put too much strain on an already overstretched system then it might be a bad idea. It will be interesting to see what comes out of all this. I’m actually excited by the idea; I feel that Twitter will need to keep improving the service or risk becoming irrelevant.

It seems that the Royal Family is now increasing its social media presence; there is already a Twitter and YouTube account. Don’t go rushing to friend the Queen on FaceBook though as the latest attempts at engaging with the online world is a bit more reserved. The Royal Family has just opened a Flickr account (or more likely their publicist) where you can view photos of this famous family. This will allow Royalists to see pictures that would otherwise be unavailable; a nice idea and one that is sure to please a lot of people.

Despite the fact that the Royal family has half a million followers on Twitter, there is very little that could be classed as social about their social media interactions. The Twitter account is used to update about forthcoming events, and not as a medium for Prince Charles to vent his frustration at how there is nothing ever on TV these days. You are also not likely to see a Tweet from Prince Philip cursing the idiot who cut him off when he was out driving in the Bentley.

It would be a bit unfair to expect the Queen of the Realm, or indeed any of the Royal family, to be fully engaged with social media. Sure it would sell well abroad, but it probably wouldn’t be very dignified. Part of what makes this family so special is that they are so apart from the rest of us. The fact thought that they are using social media at all though is a nice way for those who like that sort of thing to feel connected. It also just goes to prove how social media is affecting every institution; even those that have been around for centuries. These days if you don’t have a social media presence you don’t really exist for a lot of people.

Twitter users again suffered periods of time this week when they were faced with the smiling white whale; the symbol that Twitter is suffering problems. It now seems that these failures with the service are happening a lot more frequently. During the World Cup they seemed occurring all the time, and it took away from a lot of the enjoyment that people were getting while twittering about the matches. It really does seem that as Twitter grows in popularity it is struggling to keep up.

Nobody could have predicted just how successful Twitter would become. To be honest, when I first heard about it I thought it was a joke. Why would anyone want to waste time on messages that were only a 140 characters long? It seemed even more limited than texting. I was proved wrong though, and even though I occasionally get annoyed with the site, I have to admit that it has its charms. Twitter has also proved invaluable when it comes to keeping up with world events – in fact it has changed the world I’m sure that even the creators of the site never envisioned.

The continued down time of Twitter is a bit worrying and you have to wonder about what will happen if its current growth continues – which it seems almost certain to do. Will the white whale just appear one day and stay there forever. Many people got a shock a few months back when all their followers disappeared for a few hours; how will they cope if this happens for real. It is understandable that Twitter have been caught a bit off-guard by the success of the web-site but hopefully they will find away to accommodate its increasing popularity and turn the white whale into and endangered species.

It appears that a majority of parents may believe that social media sites like Twitter and FaceBook is making their kids less intelligent. Evidence for this comes for a recent piece of research carried out by the Australian telecommunications company Telstra. This study found that 65% of parents believed that children’s intellectual potential was being threatened by social media sites. The reason being that they were now spending a lot less time focused on homework, and they were also becoming a lot less motivated to learn. Parents were also worried about the health consequences of all that time on the web.

If you were to look back thirty years ago you would probably have found that parents said much the same thing about television. If you were to go back forty years before this then you would likely hear the same complaints about radio. One hundred years ago you may have even had parents fretting over the possible negative influence of story books on their children’s education. When you look back in history it makes the current concerns expressed by parents appear in context; it has always been this way. Most people will believe that their education was somehow superior to what comes afterwards; and that any new technology is a threat to learning. The real surprise would be if this research had shown that parents felt that social media was making them more intelligent.

Personally I feel that social media has come with good and bad. Some children will use it to learn more about the world, and increase their love of learning. Other children will use it as a means to escape school and anything to do with learning things. Nothing has really changed except the technology that children are using to achieve this aims.