My phone number? Just friend me on facebook instead.

Admit it, you have a Facebook, mySpace, or some form of social media site. The Development of social media sites are not so much a form of technology, but a product of several technologies coming together. Obviously the rapid development of the Internet and widely available access laid the foundation for social media sites to succeed. Along with smart phones, laptops and other Internet accessible devices becoming more common place, social media can be accessed from just about anywhere. Advancements with digital cameras and digital formatted pictures gaining ground as the dominate format for pictures also added to the appeal of social media sites.
Here is some more background info via the wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
Prior to current social media sites like Facebook and mySpace, you had to go to different sites or other channels to comunicate. Hotmail for your email, Photobucket for your pictures, Youtube for videos, Msn messenger for chatting. Well sites like Facebook manage to centralize those functions onto one site. People could share their status, comment on each others pages, and load pictures on the site for their friends to see. Most importantly, it let them link to each other, by means of tagging. It let your network work of friends become inter connected and became a literal network.
I wouldn’t say that social media changed the way i communicated with my family and friends, but it has certainly change where i go to do my messaging, photo sharing, and just plain “facebook stalking”. Admit it, you done it too.
How important have social media sites become? Important enough that having access to your favorite one or multiple was the main theme behind a various mobile phones. For example, Microsoft tried to market a mobile phone centered on social media called the ‘Kin’.
Here is a link to a in-depth review if your interested.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/kin-one-and-two-review/