There's a lot of noise in my head about "social media", "digital media", "new media", "web 2.0".  Mainly because I have been listening to and reading a fair amount about it.

I love the connectivity that the web-services like twitter, facebook, google reader bring.  I love that I can share life with people across the planet by publishing and (ahem) consuming content easily.  I love the shift - the tension of change - that is going on across multi-media platforms as the person-on-the-street can start to get involved in what is happening in places that seemed to be so far removed (remember when the BBC Home Service *was* the broadcast news? I don't, but if we look over the last sixty years, we can see how far we have come).  I love the cultural shift that is happening around us as we wrestle with what all these new web-services mean for how we interact.

So, last night I was doing some housework and getting things ready for coming to work while listening to Pods and Blogs from BBC Radio Five Live.  There was an interview with James Harkin that really got my attention.  At first I thought he was taking a position against the new stuff that I've just talked about, and he kept talking about *the book*, but then I realised that (from what I could hear) he was all for the new web-services, but that we stop being so caught up with the marketing of them, and spend a bit more time thinking about the cultural impact of what is going on.

I completely agree.  While I am spending an increasing part of my day-job looking into this stuff, I don't want to get caught up in the frenzy of "Social Media is the savour of the world" that some marketing professional's would have us believe.  Firstly, I believe there's only one saviour of the world and second, we all need a bit of balance to make sure we move forward on the narrow path to real progress.

Looks like there's another book on my reading list now!

Have a listen and let me know what you think.