Social Media and its Market Potential for Companies

     The dawn of social media has been hailed as revolutionary. It has seen things as revolutionary as the fall of the corrupt Egyptian government, to the rise in popular you tube videos like Nyan Cat, Numa Numa guy, and most recently Kony 2012. Both of these events express the ability of social media to allow any person to get their ideas, news, and opinions out to the public of the world.
     Though this does have the potential to be an incredible and revolutionary thing, it can also lead to companies controlling more aspects of our lives. Recently, as we pointed out in class on Tuesday, more and more companies are trying to "Personalize," our internet experience, advertising it as a great thing that will save time and produce a more enjoyable and useful internet experience. However, this is can be detrimental, since it doesn't allow for people to find new things that they might like or even allow them to find out about what is going on in the world. In addition to this, it allows for companies to take information about you and advertise to your wants so that you will buy it.
     The first indication of social medias market power was with the company Zynga. Before Zynga partnered with Facebook, it was a little known browser gaming company. However, recently, they have been reported by some to be worth $10 million dollars and they have been said to be planning a secondary stock offering in the near future. With this success, more and more companies have been trying to enter the Facebook market, offering free use of different games and such they have to offer. Some notable examples are Angry Birds, Tetris, Washington Post Social Reader, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Spotify. All these apps allow companies to see your personal information, giving them the ability to tailor advertisements to the user.
     Whether this is incredibly bad I'm honestly not too sure. I realize that it can be seen as an encroachment on our privacy, yet we aren't forced to put our information up on websites in the first place, and so companies may just see it as an option they have to try and get more people to buy their products. However, there is one recent move I really don't understand at all and would hope someone can help me with. Recently Walmart bought the Social Calendar app on Facebook, which basically just reminds people about their friends' birthdays and other holidays. Can someone please tell me why this would be useful to Walmart? I mean, are they going to tell people that they need to get presents from Walmart for people on their birthdays and holidays? I just don't know.