My comments & only 1 question need answered b4 hand. re @NYtimes "can social media sell soap"

@NYTimes "Can social media sell soap"?

Only one question need to be asked: Key is how much money is being "transacted" for products or services... Not how much money been spent on "likely eyeballs/click through" that might bring some businesses....

Is it not madness that not much media /research is being done on how much money is actually spent online or via social media? (pls point out if you know of any!) Only thing is being reported worldwide is Internet or mobile penetrations... Which sadly as mentioned by this very article in fact very difficult to find what actually matters... For any new phenomenons.. And pls don't get me started re market capitalisation as it's only sentiments and sadly is easily manipulated and bear no relation whatsoever with viability nor soundness of business model of the listed firms!

It still baffles me that as B2B and B2C customers, onus is still on us to
1) know what we want/need
2) search for solution/products
3) look through all options or take easy way out & view sponsored providers
4) despite earning millions, likes of Google still let us do due diligence & take "buyers beware" stance and sadly quite a few got short changed by unscrupulous providers..
5) some. Igt argue that the web is still wide west and understandably & rightly so that most still are cautious and do not transact online!

(on the side, despite being early adopters of Gmail from invite only days and one of few that started paying to support them, they unilaterally changed my plan to new expensive options & their decision is final, just shows how much we can trust them??!!)

Social media is ofcourse worst as T&Cs get changed without consultations (and who are each person really when they can hide behind aliases, I'm not against aliases and for protection of privacy but no kyc is done on people's. Identity!) and just think back to compuserve and even usenet/fidonet days.. No trust mean no loyalty and of course no transaction, period!  Therefore it can't even sell a piece of toilet paper.. It does other things well though but I'm still learning and keen to hear other people's views.

@GarethWong (real name)