Social media just proved again that it is a leading force as the preferred communications venue, at least among 
Facebook and Twitter users. According to an article published on April 29, 2011 in The Telegraph, titled Royal Wedding Swamps Twitter, Facebook :
The royal wedding was being mentioned around 67 times a second on Twitter as viewers took to the social network to publish their thoughts on the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. On Facebook the wedding was dominating status updates, with around 74 mentions every second.
The growing popularity of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is astounding. Just a few years ago, social users were considered recluses or at best bored geeks chatting between PC game plays. Now social includes the whole spectrum of society. A cross section might include everyone from teenagers to centenarians. And it isn’t just limited to users posting about what they named their new cats or announcements about where they’ll be taking their vacations. Social is now THE backstage pass into wherever in the world the action is happening, and the best thing: this ticket doesn’t expire. Social embraces the “now” we all want.
What’s so cool about that “now” dynamic is that users are tapping ever greater networks to get the information they want. It’s no longer just a tool to share updates with a tight circle of friends about what you’re doing, but a place to ask real-time questions like: “Who’s got pictures of the Royal Wedding?;” Including the hash-tag, #Royal-Wedding, with your Royal Wedding relevant posts on Twitter might yield you thousands of new followers eager to share their own #Royal-Wedding info. flow with you. Or on a more everyday level, users might ask questions like: “Who else has bought this new product X and what did you think of it?”
Because the instant response is so anticipated, an entire industry is being built to support it. For example, TurnTo, a pioneer in the social-widget-for-ecommerce-stores industry, has just introduced a new social widget to bring the social conversation directly onto the store website.
What’s really interesting is that social platforms are allowing its users to zoom in on events, products, and more, at their own convenience, and come away with not only accurate information, but with enough details to consider the social experience to nearly as multi-dimensional as real-life.
