1st Place Volleyball July 2010 : Page 9
According to a March 7, 2005 article in USA T oday, the na-tion’s busiest highway is the I-405 in Los Angeles. If you put a billboard up on that highway, on average, approximately 382,000 cars would see your advertisement every day. While those numbers are impressive, consider these statistics ac-cording to research compiled by comScore.com: FACEBOOK surged to the number one position among so-cial networks for the fi rst time in May 2009 and continued its strong growth trajectory throughout the year. Facebook went from being the eleventh-ranked online property to the fourth-ranked property. As of December 2009, the site claimed 112 million visitors, up 105% from about 55 million visitors during 2008. A month later, in January 2010, Facebook was up to 116 million unique visitors. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest, behind China, India, and the United States. TWITTER fi nished 2009 with nearly 20 million visitors to its Web site, up 900% from just 2 million visitors in 2008. Much of Twitter’s extraordinary audience growth occurred during the fi rst few months of 2009, at one point jumping from 4 million visitors to 17 million visitors between February and April. And it’s notable that the usage of Twitter among U.S. baby boom-ers increased 469% in 2009 over 2008. YOUTUBE now streams over 1 million videos…A DAY! Whether you are a high school or collegiate athlete or coach, there is constant pressure to keep up with the daily, some-times hourly, updates in the lives of your online community through social networking media. With the ever-growing us-age of these sites and the ease with which you can be logged in, these forms of communication can be tremendously valu-able to you, while at the same time, extremely dangerous if not monitored appropriately. You’ve all heard the stories. For many athletes, high schools and colleges have played on the fears and negative aspects of what can happen by sharing the wrong information with the wrong people. Incidences of stalking, students not getting into the college or obtaining the job they wanted because of postings on their profi le, tweeting about confi dential or pri-vate information, or the negative effects of posting pictures that you wouldn’t dare even show your mother, have been the messages that most of us are both giving and receiving. True stories of scholarships being revoked and applicants being eliminated from jobs are reality checks for all of us that social networking media like Twitter and Facebook are no longer just for fun. While extremely valuable messages, we know that teach-ing by fear or force produces only temporary results. Most of these messages were being sent by us adults who really didn’t have any concept of what Facebook is. Now, who is the largest growing demographic for Facebook and Twitter us-ers? Yes, you guessed it, us adults and especially our parents! Now, literally, your mother is trying to friend you on Facebook, which is completely creeping all of us out! Facebook is an especially convenient and useful tool for peo-ple of all ages to keep in touch with friends, share pictures, and fi nd out valuable information about a wide assortment of events, organizations, and trends. How strong is the Face-book community? Ask NBC and the Saturday Night Live ex-ecutives. In response to an unprecedented fl urry of posts, the 88-year-old actress icon, Betty White, found herself the host of the popular comedy show. Not only did she star the show, but she helped produce one of the most watched episodes of SNL in years! We are just starting to see the true impact and power that the social networking community can have. While we all must be cautious as to what we post, allow people to have access to, and what pictures we share, there are so many positive ways that social networking can be used to increase your exposure or fan base, or even used just to easily stay connected with people that are literally thousands of miles apart. July 2010 | Phenom 9
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