Shift happening: Social replacing search

An old cliché came out of retirement this week. The term was first used in 1962 by Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a fundamental change in scientific theory, and it became a cliché after people overused it when talking about new ways of thinking. It is, of course, paradigm shift. EXAMPLE: "A move toward 'One Health/One World' represents a paradigm shift in responsibility and values for health professionals."

Anyway, dear old paradigm shift is back in action again because of the news that Facebook was the most-visited website in the US in the past week. Something is changing online and, if I may use the cliché, social networks are central to this paradigm shift. Search remains critical, but social is simply hotter.

All this reminds me of my post here on 23 February: "One followed by ten zeroes". In it, I wrote about the dramatic changes shaping our century, and I used a video clip titled "Shift Happens" to sum it all up. Well, Karl Giesen immediately mailed and pointed out that the video is two years old. Could I not find something more up to date, he asked? Karl, especially for you, here is "The State of the Internet" by Jesse Thomas.