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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Networks for networks

Jeff Jarvis, former US TV critic and now author of the popular blog on emerging media trends Buzz Machine, proclaimed in Monday's Media Guardian (free subscription required) that “Today, everybody’s a network”. The bulk of the article focuses on the challenges facing the established media networks if they wish to survive in a “post-scarcity media economy”. Basically, his advice is that they “need to learn to find and recommend not just their own good stuff but good stuff from the world, from other creators’ because ‘in a world with unlimited content, there is an unlimited demand for such networks that filter and recommend”. He goes on to say that “the big guys need to see themselves not as the owners of a network but as members of a network” – a network that also involves the little guys, presumably including Jeff Jarvis. But we should be careful not to overstate that fact that “Today, everybody’s a network”. Because we’ve all always been networks. All of us exist in relationship to other people - our friends, our family, our colleagues, society as a whole, special interest groups – and symbols which help us make sense of our surroundings – language & beliefs but also brands & products, music & films. Within these relationships we have always expressed our likes and dislikes and made recommendations. The fact is that now, for some of us, these networks have gone digital. But for how many? According to research conducted here at Thinktank, very few people are yet writing blogs. This is backed up in a study reported by the Guardian itself, which claims that for every 100 people online, 1 will be creating media, 10 interacting with it by commenting and the other 89 just viewing. Whilst it seems there is a trend towards more online interaction, the popularity of sites like MySpace paying testament to that fact, the figures show that maintaining a true digital network is a calling of the few and not the many. One thing I’ve noticed from speaking to people about choice in the course of my work is that too much of it turns consumers off. On the whole, people want options and they want their interests to be catered for but they also value ease and simplicity. There certainly will be a need for guides to the increasingly fragmented media world and the major media networks will need to shift their role to reflect this. As the big media networks become more porous and offer access to material sourced from outside their own immediate confines, there will be opportunities for a few motivated individuals to take advantage, by providing niche content or offering their own informed views and recommendations. However, for the majority of people it will be business as usual, as they make use of this improved moderation to find the content that really matters to them.

1 Comments:

Blogger Nick said...

I agree entirely that 'we’ve always been network' as you say. isn't it interesting that the 'inter-connectedness' of people, the idea that we are constituted by relationships is now resurfacing in the 21st century - after the 20th's (over-)emphasis on the individual? And isn't it a bit ironic that virtual space and virtual relationships are reminding us of our very nature as 'social animals'?


At the same time I woud also caution against the idea that 'everyone' is a virtual network in the most literal sense, not only because it's unlikely that REALLY everyone will be communicate in this way - and ''everybody' here would certainly exclude large parts of the 3rd world - but also because it risks give relationships on the Net too much importance - my guess is that direct relationships will always win out over 'virtual' ones. To tie this back to our work - as far as marketing communication is concerned I'd bet that a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend in the pub will carry a lot more (eg emotional) weight than anything you may pick up on the Net… by the way, I've touched on this in my article on Global Brands - soon to be published on the Thinktank website…

10:17 AM  

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