Much time had passed since the triumphant progress of Web 2.0 all over the world. Common enthusiasm for new advanced capabilities of the technology along with citing examples of case studies like: “The way our company started the corporate blog and earned megabuck,” had faded away. Nobody shouts about social media breakthrough any more as the revolution has already occurred. So today we are witnessing the worldwide prevalence of the leading Web 2.0 technology.

Social media had a far-reaching influence on our daily life. Web 2.0 revolution had dramatically transformed some important spheres of our daily routine. Just have a look at the fascinating list of nine markets that were radically changed by the advanced Web 2.0 technology.

1. Mass Media
With the emergence of social media, things with mass media will never be the same again. The social media has radically transformed the very essence of mass media business, no matter whether we are speaking of online or offline publications. Now the readers want to define the policy of periodicals, select the materials coming to the front page and choose the authors worthy of contributing articles to this or that media by themselves. Otherwise, the readers just change for more socially oriented sites or start creating their own mass media.

A growing number of users choose to get news from sites like DIGG. So the editors of traditional news sites, who as far as yesterday asserted that social news was just another useless yo-yo toy, now consider DIGG to be a strong arch-rival.

Moreover, the reviews of newsworthy blog posts are increasingly published in print media.

For many people video aggregators had replaced TV, movies and DVD long ago. Furthermore, unlike TV, YouTube is watched not only before going to bed but during working ours as well. Individual prime time for everybody has become a reality!

2. Show Business
Tired of searching the proven paths to their fans’ hearts, pop stars start making a beeline for them by means of personal blogs, or a page on Twitter and MySpace.

Even superstars like J Lo do not miss the opportunity to upload their videos to YouTube. Vin Diesel regularly updates his personal page on Facebook adding thousands of friends from among his willing fans. Less sociable MC Hammer keeps his personal blog on Twitter allowing 660,000 users to watch his every move.

Without social Internet technologies we would never know about the so-called “web celebrities”, such as Susan Boyle and Peter Nalitch who won fame by means of social media.

And what about sound recording labels? Last.fm and Pandora had simply disrupted the industry by allowing users to listen to the music absolutely free without getting off their feet for buying CDs. Radiohead does not shun spreading its new album online absolutely free and thus earns megabucks, making leading labels to get green with envy.

Social media is likely to become half the battle for the next generation of pop stars in the nearest future. Disregarding the opportunities given by social media would certainly affect the pop stars’ reputation among the fans.

3. HR-Management
Where are the heads so carefully searched by HeadHunter? The answer is simple: they are among the numerous users of social media.

In fact, there headhunters are welcomed with hundreds of millions bios, representing the entire range of specialists: from day-care assistants to Voodoo magicians. Moreover, the specialists typically join into professional communities and start specialized professional blogs. Besides, there are recommender systems, special networks for the establishment of business relations and, what is more, Twitter. Now it is quite clear that recruiting opportunities by means of social media are infinite. It is a common knowledge that nowadays HR manager absolutely cannot do without the helpful hints given at this page.

Web 2.0 had radically transformed both the processes of specialist search and applicant recruitment. Now interviewing the applicant is not a compulsory thing: his professional skills are clearly understandable from his blog. The same thing is with the applicant profiling: why creating new profile when there is a ready-made one on MySpace or Facebook. Now the applicants using social media are just an open book for HR managers.

4. Education
With the emergence of Web 2.0 there is absolutely no need in swoting up excessive information from textbooks. Now one can get decent education online sharing the social media users’ knowledge and experience.

The social media gives all its users unique opportunities, no matter whether they choose self teaching, going to college or attending MBA courses. Some projects enable you to find textual and video training materials on practically any subject. Others give you the unique opportunity to perfectly organize your own academic activity. Still others give you access to the communities of users with similar training interests.

The simplified process of learning foreign languages by means of Web 2.0 technology is a perfect example of its improving power on educational process. There is no need to pay for the native speakers’ costly tutorials any more. Nowadays you can just visit such social sites as, for example, Livemocha where native speakers would happily correct your mistakes and provide further recommendations concerning your academic progress just for a song. All you have to do in return is just check up the exercises made by people learning your native language. Now let us think: why paying a tutor 40$ per hour if now online consultations are available absolutely free!

5. Movie Industry
Can you imagine a blockbuster not accompanied by a large-scale viral campaign? Only few can imagine it nowadays. Such a movie campaign is rather uncommon and unnatural exception out of the standard movie marketing strategy.

A-list bloggers had not visited a movie close first night? There are no movie promo pages on Facebook and MySpace! There is no revolving door simulation from movie set on YouTube… And there is no the main character’s microblog on Twitter… Well, there is really something quite abnormal about the movie! Public is most likely to consider it much far from perfect by itself.

6. Event Management
The common ground for the success of any event, including corporate workshops and flash mobs, specialized conferences and rock concerts, is the proper and well-timed informing its target audience.
Nowadays there is less need in distributing flyers and buying up costly advertising space in periodicals to inform the audience of this or that event as it can be done by means of social media. The only thing left to do is to get on the right side of the people concerned.

Web 2.0 has radically changed the major task faced by event managers. Now all they have to do is to create the micro social media in virtual space and adopt it for the real world (though the question on what is real in our world is rather complicated). The change basically concerns only the spatial area the event takes place in: for instance, the musical band fan page on Facebook is replaced by a concert hall, and online communication in the blog transforms into personal talks during real workshops and seminars.

7. Online Shopping
Today the online selling strategy: “I came, I saw, I bought,” does not seem effective any more. The leading Web 2.0 technology has radically transformed the basic tasks of online shopping which now consist in creation of consumer community of this or that web store.

Web stores lacking a built-in recommender system are increasingly considered to be obsolete and inefficient shopping tools. Nowadays buyers want the system to guide their shopping using the analysis of purchases made by people with similar buying preferences. So web stores have nothing to do but implement such recommender systems.

Let us take, for example, the industry leading Amazon. Providing the users with the branched system of rating and comments possibilities, the extensive network of subject blogs of writers and their readers, discussion communities and the recommender system taking into analysis the other users’ preferences, Amazon progressively transforms into the consumer-oriented social media with the opportunity of buying goods just as one of the numerous options. People are not interested in reading grave annotations written by editors any more. In fact, on opening the page they immediately go to view more true-to-life readers’ comments. This way Amazon keeps up with the times and meets changing users’ needs.

8. Adult Industry
Are you still sure that sexual revolution occurred in sixties? Nothing of the kind! In fact, it broke out after the first image content had been uploaded to the first social media for adults.

Maximum transparency as opposed to privacy is one of the key principles outlining Web 2.0 technology. This principle in full play can be easily evidenced among the users of social media with erotic content who willingly expose their private love life to public.

The traditional approach to adult industry is hardly effective now. People do not want to pay for access to hard movies and photo galleries as they can conveniently download photo and video materials spread by thousands of people worldwide absolutely free. Moreover, they can enjoy watching ordinary people instead of hands-off porno stars that provides them with the additional opportunities of making acquaintances, chatting and even arranging dates with the characters of their love dreams. Just think! Only yesterday we could not even imagine such interactiveness in the sphere. Could Private suggest such opportunities?

9. Marketing and PR
Here and now in information society people would hardly bother themselves with reading texts on advertising panels. Nowadays there is nothing more useless than posting of press releases, is not it? Today every person gets thousands of advertising messages a day. The reality we live in becomes overloaded by different kinds of information; therefore, traditional techniques of audience impact are hardly effective. Marketing specialists had far back stressed the necessity of breathing new life into advertising business and they got just what they wanted by way of social media marketing (SMM).

Corporate blogs, branded pages on Facebook, microblogs on Twitter – here you are with the new generation marketing tools. This is an innovative way of building equal and mutually beneficial relationships between marketing specialists and their target audience in the framework of business-to-consumer marketing.

Social media marketing is the powerful tool for premium brands such as Disney and Ford as well as for small and medium enterprises as the SMM campaign can cost either millions of dollars or just a penny. It all depends on your own approach to it because social media, like Colonel Samuel Colt, strives for equal opportunities for both strong and weak.

The current economic system is taking advantages of the new opportunities aroused by social media, so today we are witnessing the socialization of the above mentioned markets. It is quite evident though that further transformation of the markets is inevitable. Technology advances – you should, too.