The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years.

At a minimum the majority of search dollars will flow to a social media model because people care most about what their peers think and the technology is there for that information to be quickly shared on products and services.

Successful companies in social media function more like entertainment companies, publishers, or party planners than as traditional advertisers.

That's the power behind a tool like Facebook Connect. It is making a Web without walls. Facebook allows you to go to other sites to comment, rate, etc., without having to set up a new profile for that site.

25 percent of search results for the world's top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content. 34 percent of bloggers post opinions about products and brands.

It had not yet been named Silicon Valley, but you had the defense industry, you had Hewlett-Packard. But you also had the counter-culture, the Bay Area. That entire brew came together in Steve Jobs.

With the growing reliance on social media, we no longer search for news, or the products and services we wish to buy. Instead they are being pushed to us by friends, acquaintances and business colleagues.