Social Media: Cash or Crock?

"Everything that can be invented has been invented"
This quote was said by Charles H. Duell, Commissioner in 1899. He worked for the US patent office. 

This morning I have been researching quotes such as this one to add to a page I am working on for my website titled "Social Media: Cash or Crock". It will have statistics and videos that support social media and the idea of a network of connections as a way to grow your business and build your brand. 

I love thinking about the future in terms of technology and inventions and how business will be run and how our mindset as a society is changing so rapidly right now. When people say social media is a passing trend and they don't need to use it to grow their businesses, I think they are missing getting in on the ground floor of something HUGE. Sure you don't have to have a Facebook to run a business, but why miss an opportunity to connect with your target audience?

Here are quotes on some other passing trends that did not need to be considered: 
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. - Ken Olson (President of Digital Equipment Corporation) at the Convention of the World Future Society in Boston in 1977.

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusi on of the wise and humane surgeon." -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria , 1873