Today’s TV on Tuesday is a TED Talk by James Surowiecki, finance writer for the New Yorker and author of The Wisdom of the Crowds. He pinpoints the moments that social media became as relevant and informational as traditional news (such as the 2005 tsunami or the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes) and how it may even trump traditional media in its ability to preserve personal stories in their most direct form.  How do you get your news these days? Is it from social media (tweets, Facebook updates, and the like) or more traditional sources (such as the New York Times)?

Just how many of us have a Facebook account in the world? To even think about it you know the number is going to be astronomical; the question is “who doesn’t have a Facebook account?”  By December 2009, Facebook single handedly attracted 469 million visitors, putting them at the No.4 most viewed website in the world.  Sound like just a number to you?  More than 31 million people signed onto Facebook in December 2009 then in November – Yahoo had 31 million viewers in the entire year of 2009.  That’s right, Facebook had that many hits in just thirty-one days.  The social networking site is quickly climbing the ladder to becoming the third largest Web property in the world (booting out Yahoo as number three, and closely behind Google (No.1) and Microsoft (No. 2)).

All in all, Facebook has grown by almost 250 million viewers in 2009.  If Facebook continues to attract this number of people, it will surely pass Yahoo as the third most viewed website in the world by the end of 2010.  But how many viewers does it need to take on the No.2 and No.1 websites? To pass Microsoft, Facebook would need well over 727 million hits worldwide, and Google of 899 million viewers, which may take more time then the 11 months left to 2010.

On the other hand, Facebook surpasses both Yahoo and Microsoft in many other aspects.  For example, Facebook’s page views grew an estimated 141% last year to 193 billion in December, Yahoo only received 100 billion while Microsoft pulled in 109 billion.  Although Facebook passed these two head honchos, Google still holds the top spot for 274 billion a month. When all’s said and done, Facebook is making exceptional growth in today’s market of most viewed websites. So keep checking out your friends, updating your status and pictures, and let’s move Facebook to the number three spot!

In the recent post by Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams, he tweets: “Across all metrics that matter, yesterday was Twitter’s highest-usage day ever. (And today will be bigger.)” All well and good, but this raises the question:  why the concern? Why the defiance? Twitter’s doing all right… isn’t it?

Doing a bit of sleuthing, we uncovered the following social media trends over the past year:

Facebook’s number of visits, as perhaps expected, are on an upward trajectory. But Twitter and LinkedIn are a different story: the number of visits are completely flatling.  The website Compete allows comparison between various sites. Go to Compete’s website > click the green “try it for free” link > create a login. Once thats done you can click on the link “compare sites” and fill in the boxes with sites you want to compare statistically. We put in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and clicked the one year link to see the data over the past 12 months.  This is what we saw:

What do you think are the reasons for this?  Are LinkedIn and Twitter simply trends that have passed their prime?  And what allows Facebook to be eternally popular – the increase in services, the changing interfaces, or simply the wider market?  Let us know your thoughts!

Many people are attributing the success of Avatar to the influence and vast reaches of social media. At first, we shook our heads in denial. You see, having seen Avatar we would like to say that Cameron’s one billion dollar profit (one billion dollars!!) is directly related to the stunning visuals, thought-provoking themes and truly inspiring characters created in the film.

Nevertheless: It must be grudgingly admitted that the team at Avatar’s commitment to social media is almost as impressive as their commitment to pure awesome in the actual film. The facts are these: Avatar has Facebook, Myspace and a Twitter page. On Twitter they have 20,245 followers, and even more impressive they have 725,707 friends on Facebook. This allowed already fascinated more polite word for obsessed) fans to post, tweet and get involved in the geek event of of the season. Some might argue that Twitter, Facebook and Myspace accounts are fairly usual now as Hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon and realized the importance of online marketing – enter Avatar’s interactive trailer…

The piece de resistance, the straw that broke the camel’s back (or in Cameron’s case, gave the camel a gold saddle worth one billion dollars) is the interactive trailer. You need to download it but it’s worth it. The genius of this trailer is that there are 10 hotspots, where you have the option to click for further in depth information. such as cast interviews. Once you have had your fill of Jake Sully, you can click to resume the remainder of the visually stunning trailer. Not only that, but you can get all of the latest Twitter, Flickr and YouTube feeds right from the trailer.

In conclusion, the social media force cannot be underestimated, It is a powerful tool that even such powerhouses as James Cameron cannot ignore. But as cool as tweeting, Facebook posting and clicking on interactive trailers are, still go and see the movie.

And bring your 3D glasses. It’s an awesome look.