A Regular Roundup of Social Media Musings
by Anna Gerz & Mike Wilt

This month’s collection of all things Social Media takes a look at how far Social Media has come and how we keep up with it.

How far we have come…

I committed the cardinal sin of someone with “Digital” in their job title the other day. I left my house without my phone AND laptop charger. Realizing my mistake immediately after the schedule-induced point of no return, I was left to painfully watch said batteries drain bar by lime green bar. Soon out of juice and left to actually observe my surroundings rather than an LCD screen, I started to think about what I did before I was so tethered to my wireless connections. Think about it. If you are connected as most involved in the digital side of our professional endeavors, what was it like before you were “always on?” Drawing on that thought process, I came to the shocking realization that this anxious absence of data that had me so distraught was a relatively new emotion. So, nearing the end of the summer of 2011, I present to you some perspective:

• Twitter first tweeted in 2006
• The Social Network’s plot began to take shape in 2004
• YouTube began eating bandwidth in 2005
• LinkedIn, the somehow fittingly elder of the group, came to be in 2003

In a certain light, 2005-ish seems like a lifetime ago. But in just six years the consumption of information and even digital relationship dynamics has dramatically changed. Need more proof? The iPhone and Android didn’t come to be until 2007. This was one of the most touted devices of 2005. And look how some of our favorite social media (and other) sites looked back in the day.

The irony of it all, and I think a statement to the proliferation of social media, is the fact I couldn’t really share this grounding, reality checking, oddly self-loathing experience without the very tools whose absence instigated it. So follow, friend, like and share. But keep it all in perspective.

Update Your RSS Feeds

A post a few months ago covered the “Best Social Media Books,” and while books are a great place to learn the basics, the ever-changing landscape requires a more flexible medium to stay informed. Much like we’ve watched social media platforms launch, roll out numerous updates and even disappear, we have relied on specific websites and e-news to stay up to speed on all things social media.

Mashable traditionally a go-to source for social media news, has grown increasingly focused on the business aspects of social media, with pictures and infographics sprinkled in for good measure. We’ve found a lot of value in opening up our feeds to include updates from technology and entrepreneurial sites recently. The basics of social media have been well-established and documented, now it’s time to start broadening the horizon to find the ideas and examples that have social media implications, even if they were compiled on a site that isn’t dedicated to social media.  

And for our monthly items of note:

• Twit Pics – Twitter is now organizing photos you upload into the service into galleries. A small upgrade but a service that continues to blur lines between SM properties.
• The Prego Announcement that shook the earth – The East Coast earthquake provided some amazing data on social media usage but was soon outdone by Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement.
• Google+,+,+ - Google continues to add features centered on its +1 button and Google+ social networking, putting an emphasis on content authors and +1’d pages,  enabling creators and purveyors of digital content to build their online persona well beyond what weekend pictures their friends tagged them in.

What has caught your social-savvy eye this month?