One for you data watchers

From Twitter via @fredsimmons. Thanks, hon.

Social media is still on the rise globally - here's some data from TrendSpotting.

"Universal McCann has recently published its comparative study following Social Media trends by three waves: September 2006 (Wave 1), June 2007 (Wave 2) March 2008 (Wave 3)."

























There's some good commentary on this data at the original post. I personally am not interested in specific data (numbers and percentages - yawn) but trends, absolutely. And what this graph means to me is this:

• Blogs and online videos are now absolutely mainstream. There is no reason to not CONSIDER taking advantage of what value might be created by incorporating them in your association's communications vehicles.
• Social networks are now almost mainstream. Even if you don't want to create a profile for your association, do it now as a placeholder before someone else takes your name.
• Podcasts are coming up in the world. What an easy thing to start doing. Offer them to your members only or use them to promote your content to the public, but use them. People are downloading them!
• RSS is still having an identity crisis. We early adopters need to find a way to teach our associations how to use it effectively internally and to push feeds out to our audiences. Once it catches on to the mainstream it will change everything for late-adopters - but people still don't get it.

That's my two-minute interpretation. Any thoughts?