Social media has this stigma.

In the past six years, those brand-name behemoths of an industry that didn’t exist at this decade’s beginning have reached every corner of the developed world. When something, when anything reaches that level of prevalence, there’s going to be some backlash.

So, yes, a medium devoted to regular updates and structured around Web-based interactions is derided for self-reflectiveness and impersonality. But, of course, there is value to be gained, too.

Businesses, organizations and other groups are connecting, interacting and communicating with their communities and consumers in ways that were never possible before. On an individual level, too, connectivity has changed: the dissemination of information and building and sustaining relationships will likely never be the same.

It’s with this in mind, that I’ve found a reserved, but devoted interest in social media.

I readily admit the worst of the buzz words and online posturing, the wasted time and pointless obsessions, but there is power on those tubes and it is transforming communication in ways not unlike the Web itself once did, and e-mail and RSS protocol and the like.

It’s OK to note the remarkable power of these tools, without having to be another idiot calling himself a social media evangelist or something of that ilk.

Let us not forget that.