The Economist explores the world of social networking in a special issue, everything from Twitter to Yammer.
A World Of Connections – The Economist
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Many have argued that content aggregation is the way to go for the internet. Some have gone so far as to claim “aggregate, or be aggregated”. So far, no one’s disputing the inevitability of such a future. Under the radar, WSJ owns All Things Digital, and NTY runs Blogrunner. Both are experimenting with those ventures to hopefully work out some kind of business model.
This is done, despite venom spouted in the background that claim those aggregators tapeworms or parasite, siphoning off the hard labour of old media whose only mistake is playing by the rules. Aggregators in the meantime, have taken off.
Digg started the trend off, by promoting a system of voter-sourced news that is real time, streaming, and democratic. A slew came on board soon after. Stumbleupon, Reddit, Sphinn, and many topic and industry-specific Diggs have sprung up to varying degrees of success. In the last few years, Twitter – broadcasted in 140 characters or less, is the service that keeps on giving. It is now becoming the tool people turn to break news, do status updates, and my favourite use: alternative social bookmarking service.
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The news media is now scrambling to find a feasible business plan that could replace its print readers, and to stop the cannibalization of its content, indexed and marketed by Google, without any monetary compensation. Media moguls have blasted everything from Google, bloggers, to those aggregators for egregious use of their content. The proponents have told those old guards to bugger off. Those old men retorted by threatening to cut access.
This carries about as little weight as the paper it’s printed on. People that used to make a decent living from writing and reporting, have of course, been squeezed between a rock and a hard place. No one likes to talk to themselves. So the goal of any self-respecting reporter is to get exposure, and engage with readers. Blogging has taken much of the prestige of reporting away. Nowadays, anyone who has the patience to sit down and write may win a sizeable audience in due course.
A couple of days ago, a fellow blogger commented on this rather unfortunate Fortune article on his blog. It is interesting for several reasons.
First, the ideas are cookie-cutter and stale. Us Gen Yers had been told (to a certain extent) that we were on the cusp of a great demographic shift, where baby boomers’ impending departure would wreak havoc on corporate health. True, some of us were led to believe that our contribution would be valued at a premium, which would in turn translate into lots of choices and result in us hopping through the corporate environment at break-neck speed. In reality? Highly unlikely. The smart ones among us always knew that good jobs are competitive, and supply almost always outstrip demand, especially at the bottom rung. But the media kept up the propaganda – to what end, I don’t know. Every once in a while, articles like this appear.
Second, the timing is totally off. Because of economic realities, many boomers simply can’t afford to retire. More and more Gen Yers find themselves in a much more competitive environment than they were led to believe. Now everybody is learning to make do with less and to compromise. Exactly who is out pandering to those misunderstood geniuses, I’m not sure.
The somewhat hilarious prescriptions thrown around by the Fortune writer, and the kick my blogger friend got out of it, reminds me of a book I heard about recently. In this book, the authors address the various social and consumerist constructions of the Gen Y generation. I took some notes, here’s a broad overview of the ideas.
School: the obsession with feeling good at all cost
According to the book, the ME culture evolved over several decades, but found its decisive start within the school system. The baby boomer generation struck out, rejected authority and tried to find its own path. In their children, they instituted and obsessed over instilling self-esteem. Subsequently, various forms of formal, or informal self-esteem programs were introduced in school. They generally aim to make children feel good about themselves at all times and at all cost, with messages like: you are special, you are unique, you are fine just the way you are.
With the collapse of Wall Street and Detroit, self-promotion is the only industry America has left. Owen Thomas [Gawker]
There are no more passionate or enterprising individuals in the world than Americans. No other people in the world have embraced the idea of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement with same level of enthusiasm, shamelessness, and let’s face it, success that even closely rivals the Americans. Over the centuries, a distinctly love/loathe relationship has formed between the public and its tireless marketers.
Ultimately, marketing is a push activity. Unless you make extraordinary products like iPod, or Maserati, or limited edition Nike shoes. In that case, you push in indiscernible ways to create demand, and then sit back and manage the pull. Or you could just make a kickass product and sell it. That’s how it used to be a couple of hundred years ago. Then marketers realized there’s money to be made by hype and mass-production. Then soon enough, everyone was doing it, because not doing it was like surrendering before the battle even starts. Advertising became the bugle that signaled the legitimacy of a product, and we accepted it as so.
After decades of marketing, spearheaded by the Madison Avenue machine and sponsored by its corporate clients, the symbiotic engine began to sputter. Consumers got tired of having products pushed to them by conglomerates. The previous marketing mix management and product line expansion gimmicks started to see cracks.
Then the information revolution descended upon us. Soon enough, everyone had a voice, and everyone started talking to everyone else. Corporations realized that they were no longer in charge of their brand image, and it became increasingly difficult to hide behind PR campaigns. Many disastrous marketing campaigns and ineffective “customer outreach” programs later, businesses looked to young, hip, and mostly self-educated and self-branded social media gurus for help. Soon enough, those guys sprang up everywhere, advising dinosaurous businesses on the proper management of their “social media presence”.
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