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Community The Web If you’re 20, you had a MySpace page 5 years ago. If you’re 40, you didn’t know about MySpace until you saw an exposé on the evening news 2 years ago. The 20-somethings all left home and switched to FaceBook. Their 40-something parents joined to keep tabs on them. The 20-somethings got embarrassed and quit paying attention to their pages. So did their parents. Social media was just a passing fad. Wrong. Maybe the story sounds familiar but social media isn’t dead just because you might have deleted your profile. When’s the last time you watched a video on YouTube? Ever looked at news online and ended up on a blog? Been to Wikipedia? That’s social media. So let’s take a moment to dispel the myths and get on the same page. Blogs aren’t just for people who live in their parents’ basement. Social networking sites aren’t only for people looking to “hook up.” Social media is much bigger than that. Anywhere on the Web you can leave a comment, post a photo or video, or share an idea is social media. That’s a lot of places. The Coast Guard already has official pages on MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr and YouTube. There’s also an extensive U.S. Coast Guard entry on Wikipedia that covers everything from history and missions to how we know Popeye was a Coastie. So when it comes to social media, the Coast Guard has already made the commitment to be there. This begs the question, why? The answer is communication. Socializing Adm. Thad Allen and HS3 Luke Thompson illustrate how new tools are allowing people to communicate like never before. Composite photo by PA2 Dan Bender 2.0 BY PA2 DAN BENDER, CG MAGAZINE COAST GUARD 10 Coast Guard — Issue 4, 2008 11 uscg.mil/mag Did you know? Half of the 10 busiest websites are social YouTube accounts for 10 percent of all internet traffic During Hurricane Ike the Coast Guard page was one of the top 20 most visited on YouTube Sources: technorati.com, youtube.com •• •
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10-13-BLOG.pdf