Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogues. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content."¹

Understanding the impact and magnitude of social media is a daunting task perhaps because of its ever-changing landscape.

In less than two years, Internet Explorer has reduced browser share by more than 15%. Firefox and Chrome are the main winners picking up around 10% and 7% respectively.

Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. A conventional layout is thus more likely to make sites profitable.

Web users make up their minds about the quality of a website in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage!