Just A Pretty Face(Book)? Social Media Tries To Come Of Age

Emails are old hat; SMSs passes. Tweeting, blogging, and posting on "walls" are no longer the domain of the under-30s. They have become a staple of the way most people in the world communicate today, of the way Fortune 100 companies reach out to customers old and new. Social media have spawned a whole new support industry. Companies such as Trender, Attentio and Nielsen BuzzMetrics monitor and analyse all the data which can be retrieved from electronic transactions - be they messages, purchases and everything in-between. BuyWithMe, Groupon and LivingSocial integrate social media on behalf of merchants, taking a percentage of the revenues.