At the risk of turning this blog into a book review, I wanted to recommend “Here Comes Everybody” to readers interested in the real world impact of social media like this very blog.
Two pieces of insight (doh!) that jumped out at me from this book;
- All of the consumer generated content on the internet that I find of poor quality or a waste of time – was not posted for me. They are private conversations overheard in a public place. Publish then filter is the new process, vice versa to broadcast media.
- Truly popular people on the internet become famous. This converts them from conversationalists to broadcasters. Fame means more inputs than outputs and when this happens with volume they cannot repond to enough individuals to maintain personal interactions. With a million visitors per month, the most famous bloggers cannot read all of the comments let alone respond to them. “What technology giveth, social factors taketh away”.
In our consulting to business we often meet scepticism about social media and have to enter the ‘change in kind versus degree’ argument. I now have a great word picture answer thanks to Clay’s blog;
‘I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.”‘
The change is not complete but it is fundamental. A mash-up.
