We have our memories; and we all have a future that we look towards, but what we have right now is now. Social media provides us with, and allows us to provide, that real time data stream of what is happening now. Today. This moment, this hour, this minute.
We connect on various social networks with people who we have shared our lives with in the past. We connect with folks who we share common interests with in the work place, but it all happens in real time. We share our lives now with our family and friends as it unfolds. It’s immediate. We react, we create, we comment. In the moment.
These interactions are going to become more defined, more finite and more micro as we hurtle forward.
And I’m OK with that.
Direct Marketing Observations 
Slight correction, if I may. Social media doesn’t enable data flow; people enable it. Without people, there is no media.
Since I lunched my own Social network http://www.resident-of-the-world.com – the most difficult task i have ever faced in my whole carrier – I was a trader by the way – is not to bring people to register, this is only a question of how money you put in ads, PR etc..but to encorage people to put contents, specially at an early stage. But we all know the story of the chicken and the egg.