No, it’s not free. If you are assuming that in a social networking web site - all is free, kindly rethink. There is nothing like a free lunch, remember. So, ‘all is free’ is not ‘all is well’. The user registration is free - you may argue. We all accept the terms and conditions without actually reading them because we value our time. By the way, have we ever calculated the monetary worth of our minute?
Twitter has 75 million users now. Approximately 10 to 15 % are active users. The growth rate is still in 1000+ percentage. Facebook currently has more than 400 million active users and more than 100 million active users’ access facebook via mobile phone. Linkedin, Myspace, flickr are few more famous social networking sites where our digital presence is important. Bebo, Badoo, Blackplanet, Classmates.com, Flixster, Habbo, Hi5, Last.fm, Xanga, and Windows live spaces – all have more than 20 million users. There are domain specific social networking websites for music, for traveling, for books, for scientists, for arts etc.
The total population of the world is approximately 6,800 million and the world internet usage stat shows that 1,733,993,741 people across the globe access internet which is 25.6 % of the total world population. If we assume that 100 million people (5.8% of the internet savvy population) across the globe are spending 5 minutes daily on social networking, and their earnings or their parents or spouses’ average earnings per month is $1000. Total money spent in 5 minutes on social networking is
$26.04 x 100,000,000 users = $2,604,000,000
If you reduce the amount of salary to $500 per month, the cost of social networking for 5 minutes is reduced to half the amount, which is $1,302,000,000.
One can calculate the cost of electricity for the 100,000,000 active users in 5 minutes across the globe per day per month or per year. There are many electricity consumption calculators available online. One can add the infrastructure cost and the maintenance cost, the impact on health etc as the invisible cost.
For a media or entertainment person who is earning few million dollars per month or per year, hiring a PR and maintaining the digital presence on the social networking site is affordable. For a common working class person – think before you devote your precious minutes. What do we gain in return? Addiction, contacts or friends?
The biggest advantage of social network- it has brought people near to each other. One can sit and travel miles in seconds to talk to the person. Sharing pictures provides an insight into the life, way of living, cultures and happenings. We feel comfortable to know him or her before actually pitching him or her - the business need, professional need or to show the rest that we know him or her or really befriend and learn something.
Cons – the electricity consumption has gone up. Global warming has gone up. Electronic garbage is growing at the alarming rate. We intend to peep more in other’s life rather than improving our self and learning from the nature. Creativity needs inner peace, aloof moments, it can never be nurtured by being online dedicatedly. This is my perspective.
So, a social networking website of the people, by the people and for the people has terrifying side effects too.
Now we all can calculate - how much amount of money Shashi Tharoor spends on twitter. But, his voice reaches to an audience of 680,000+ people in few seconds and anyone from any part of the world can send tweet message to him.
Count your seconds. Moments are precious.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9148878/Twitter_now_has_75M_users_most_asleep_at_the_mouse
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.html
