Social media picked as the search of the next decade. Wednesday, 21st October 2009 Source : Luke Clark at ITB Asia & WIT 2009 - Exclusive

The impact of social media has been picked to have the same impact on web user in the next decade as search has had on the current one, according to a keen social media watcher. 

Morris Sim, the CEO of Circos.com, told WIT 2009 today that social media has witnessed an explosion of interest in the past year, with interest especially strong in Asia.

He says Facebook.com is already the number 1 website in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines. 

He says that of the world's top 20 websites, eight are powered by social media. "When we think about the amount of content generated, this explains why social media is so popular."

According to Sim, Facebook is witnessing the sharing of 2 billion photos per months, and commanding 6 billion minutes worth of views per day, with each viewer spending an average 30 minutes. 

"Over the last ten years, Google has taught everyone that there's a new paradigm. Social media is just where Google used to be 10 years ago," says Sim. 

Social media was used by the third generation of web users, he said, a fact which would have significant impact on brands, and the way that we interact with them. 

"The 20 to 40 year olds have had many years of using the web, so there's a certain amount of web savvy with them. Then the brands I choose to interact with are a reflection of me – and I want to tell people about them."