The internet is primarily a communication tool to keep people connected.  Most of those connections happen in the communities where people live work and play.  So it makes sense that most of the conversations happening on Facebook and through email are with people in your same geographic area.

According to the study by Hebrew University ( article below )  the main utility has been to increase communications hyper-locally.

These hyper-local connections are why local businesses can benefit from social media.  You don’t have to be a business with a global reach to gain value from participating in social networking.  By connecting where your customers are having conversations you can provide a resource to the local online social networks in your community.  If you’re listening to the conversations in your community you can discover ways to be helpful.  If you participate in the online community conversations you can become a trusted thought leader.   While listening to your local markets online conversations you can learn value information about your community and industry that will help your business succeed.

Local social media conversations are happening daily.  Do not underestimate the opportunity to connect with your local community on the web.

from Fast Company

Ever use email to talk to the person sitting one office down? You’re not alone. Most people use the Web to talking to people within their own city, not far-flung contacts, according to a new study by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The study says that while the Web has developed a reputation as a tool for geo-commerce and penpalling, the main utility has been to increase communications hyper-locally. In fact, the abstract says, “the volume of electronic communications is inversely proportional to geographic distance.”

The finding puts a new spin on Stanley Milgram’s controversial 1963 hypothesis that every American is connected by roughly six mutual acquaintances. Apparently, our most-used connections–even aided by Facebook and all our other techno-tools–still have more to do with geographic distance than personality, work, politics or other uniting factors.

Experimenters studied data from 100,000 participants that were both Facebook users and email users. They found that most Facebook users’ friends are within several miles of their location–not too surprising (see graph above). But they also found that emailing followed the same pattern: 41% of the emails that participants sent were within their own city (see graph below). Click below to download the study.

[Via Clay Shirky]