Hutch Carpenter from the “I’m Not Actually A Geek” blog argues that companies should start employing Social Media Managers, because Web 2.0 tools – while phenomenally successful on the internet – will be difficult to implement in companies, because the pool of social media activists is smaller:

“The thing about social media is that once people get it, they really get excited about it. Facebook has experienced terrific growth. Twitter is edging more closely to early mainstream. FriendFeed is rapidly growing. But all of these companies had a chance to incubate and grow an enthusiastic set of early adopters, which leads to broader usage.

There are two issues for companies to address in the adoption of social media:

- Slow internal adoption can cause the initiative to die from lack of focus and budget.

- The real benefit of social media comes when many people participate. Slow adoption means companies won’t see good benefit for a while.”

Hutch continues to rally for Social Media Managers as socially active media advocates who

“- initiate discussions

- participate in discussions

- report on discussions”

and who “likely emerge organically from early users”.

[link to the blog post]

The Webomatica blog asked the question what criteria should be fulfilled in order for a technology to be considered “mainstream”. After all, not everybody is as tech-aware as, let’s say, the readers of this blog. Webomatica suggests four tests to find out:

1. “Joe Average Test”: Has the technology ever come up in casual conversations with “non tech obsessed” friends and co-workers?
2. “Spousal Approval Test”: Does your significant other like the technology, or think is has value?
3. “Aged Relative Test”: Have family members of older generations (e.g. your parents, in-laws) asked troubleshoot questions about the technology, or if it is worth using?
4. “David Letterman Top Ten List Test”: Did the technology appear in mainstream talk shows, for example on one of David Letterman’s top ten lists?

The post goes on to test a number of technologies that way (e.g. iPhone, Amazon, Facebook: mainstream; Digg, RSS, Twitter: not mainstream), states that

“a lot of stuff that the early adopter might consider ‘passe’ hasn’t yet hit mainstream awareness”

and makes a number of recommendations to increase the chances of a technology becoming mainstream – if that’s the plan at all.

[Link – via ReadBurner)