Discussion started with a quick look at the results of an interesting (but admittedly non-statistaically significant) survey conducted by @philson in his Lakeville neighborhood.  The survey goal was to uncover  much awareness and involvement in social media within “average” households.  In this case, average equals a household without tech-heads and social media early adopters.

The results were as expected.  Most people are aware of Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Linkedin.   There is only minimial awareness of sites where the primary content is something other than people/profiles.  Flickr, Last.fm, Pandora, Del.icio.us, and Twitter have minimal awareness and almost zero usage.

Reality Check = Most people don’t have SM as a part of their daily lives beyond the “usual suspects.”

This did not seem to come as much of a surprise to the session attendees.

Then the question:  What are the barriers to making these sites mainstream?

Traditional advertising was suggested as a solution.  In counter, it was suggested that traditional advertising might promote one-and-done users.

If that is true, then social media has a long road to mainstream.  Relying on word of mouth and relevancy in a communication category that is evolving and changing as fast as dot coms were created in the mid 90’s leaves a constant learning curve for early adopters.  Without any settling of best practices and a constant evolution of tactics, mainstream users might be slow to sign on to social media sites.

Moreover, is it possible that the speedy evolution of social media technologies, sites and connections could prove so dizzying to “average-joes” that it actually hinders a broad adoption?