Is Social Media a Fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?

Wow, just discovered and watched the Socialnomics video by Eric Qualman with a new book entitled Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business. Very compelling short video with stats and demographics, along with a list of factoids and sources.

Here's Eric's definition of Socialnomics:

• Following a recent speech I gave, an audience member had a great question. “If Socialnomics was in Webster’s Dictionary, what would it say?" Depending on if it were user generated content or not it would most likely state: The ability of social media to generate exponential returns for individuals and businesses. A subset of this is that in the future we will no longer search for products and services, rather they will find us via social media.
  
• Those returns could vary for business from leads, sales, brand awareness, customer service. For people the returns can be that more of your friends know you are in New York, staying connected with friends, getting product & service info from friends, promoting your new song, engaging in two-way dialogues with companies, keeping abreast of the latest trends, etc.

So: is social media a fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? Take a view and then decide... more of my thoughts later. He's worth following at http://socialnomics.net/