Social media has caused monumental changes
Social media use of the internet has caused monumental changes in industries, eg the demise of many great corporations whose influence & profitability seemed unassailable like
On the other hand some traditional players have adapted and survived like Dymocks. With more than 1/3 of Dymock's competitors like Borders, Angus and Robertson, etc have gone out of business in the last decade; retail, book sales have fallen by more than 5% a year over the last 5 years while online book sales have surged 26% a year (Sue Mitchell, 2014). Dymocks have bucked this trend by embracing
- franchising (a good franchisee can get an extra 20 to 30% more sales out of a given store, as it is like an owner/operator business with their own money involved and extra work hours they willingly put in)
- e-commerce (selling books on the Internet)
- using "Big Data" to analyse customers' shopping habits and to drive sales through its "Booklovers" club, ie
"...Dymocks' same-store sales rose 8% last financial year - well ahead of the 1.3% growth in the total book market - and sales in the first quarter of 2014 have risen 8.6%..."
Sue Mitchell, 2014
"...The data analysis allows us to identify customers far more individually and what they like and don't like and what turns them on. It enables us to give them the service where they require it, whether it's online click-and-collect or in-store."
John Forsyth, CEO, Dymocks as quoted by Sue Mitchell, 2014
- media (e-newsletters/TV v. print - the latter have
i) falling readership & circulation, eg for 23 quarters Australian newspaper circulation has fallen
ii) falling advertising income
iii) mass staff lay-offs, etc
- music (change from large records-making studio/labels and disc-jockey/radio controlled stations to use of lap-tops and Internet)
- finance (internet banking v. cheque where the latter cost over US 1.00 to handle as opposed to a few cents; ATMs worldwide)
- retail stores (online buying v shopping centre; with more people buying products on-line, the shopping centres are struggling)
- gambling (online gambling v traditional book-makers (horses), pubs/clubs (poker machines), etc; on-line is growing rapidly & diversifying into new areas like team sports, social gambling, etc; seen as entertainment)
- tele-medicine (virtual doctors). As early as 1924, a US doctor used a television link to consult on surgery; in 1960, NASA began monitoring astronauts in space. Despite the introduction of smart phones and tablets, most healthcare still happens face-to-face as the need for security and privacy is great. Electronic versions of sensitive documents such as x-rays or doctor's notes need to be as secure as paper ones. In August 2014, one of US's biggest hospital groups claimed the Chinese stole data on 4.5 m. patients (The Economist, 2014b).
Some countries like Israel have a health system that is fully digitalised with all doctors using electronic medical records and patients having access to their data; prescriptions and referrals are done on the Internet. Also, developing countries, like Rwanda, can use leading international specialists from USA via the Internet. Tele-medicine will only save costs if it replaces the old routines.
A further development is the use of drones to be sent to the patient with instructions how to use medical equipment and/or provide photos of patient for health professionals to be able diagnosis from. They can deliver medical equipment in 1/10th of the time it takes an ambulance to do the dame job.
Social media is helping in the developing world. For example, an app is helping local fishermen (Indonesia)
"...most fishermen live in remote villages. They don't own much, just a traditional boat and they navigate by the moon. So we give them a handset and the app. For the first time, they can check the weather forecast, and where to go because the app has information on where the plankton is. Around 25,000 fishermen are now using this app..."
Dian Siswarini as quoted by Emma Connors 2020