I must remind myself that some of the information presented in this book is now dated. First published in 2006 and then updated in 2008, the rapid generation of change that has occurred just since 2008 has transformed how we process information. At the time of publication, MySpace was the principal source for social-sharing and networking and even today boasts 66 million users as reported in Wikipedia. But Facebook, which launched 2 years earlier than MySpace, now, boasts 500 million users—also according to Wikipedia.
This is interesting to me because it is only in the past 12 months that I myself created a Facebook page and while it has been fun catching up with old school chums, I lose interest pretty quickly during my rare visits to the site. I find myself not caring much that someone had a dentist appointment or that someone had a bad day. These are things I never felt were fodder for public sharing or explanation. It seems the interactivity of Facebook has created an entirely new universe of “people watchers”. I am amazed at some of the things people will share in the most public of forums. I fear a generation brought up on publicly sharing the innermost details of their lives on the internet. Yet it is happening. I have seen my nieces arguing with each other on Facebook! They were of course in the same house at the time. Is internet communication going to undermine the value of face-to-face communication? And if so, what does that mean for in-person social maturation? I am just wondering.
I am reminded of a client I worked with recently. This client had a website that was simply not searchable on Google. After entering just about every possible combination of words that would describe her business, her business did not appear anywhere in Google. I explained to her that this was a serious problem and would absolutely stand in the way of her success. I then spoke to her of “tags”. Even I, the non-techie, knew what tags were and what they meant to the searchablity of a website. I was amazed that her website developer had not inserted any tags whatsoever in her website and therefore her service, which was very much a niche service, did not appear in a Google search. She is also one who wants to create content, but she wants to be paid for it. I did not explain that this was inconsistent with the business model of most web-based businesses—and in fact antithetical to the entire premise of Web 2.0. and peer-to-peer collaboration. This client is an ideal example of a business that will likely fail due to a lack of understanding of Web 2.0 capabilities. People want interactivity. They are no longer content to sit and stare.
My generation has seen so many changes in how we mass-communicate. As a child, on TV there were only three TV networks. We went from watching the Walton’s to The Brady Bunch to Good Times and The Jeffersons. Fledgling TV networks and independent stations struggled to stay on the air. Then came cable. I was in high school when CNN and Lifetime began providing alternatives to over-the-air television. But still, we sat and we stared. In the early 1990’s came the first real signs of connectivity for the common man via AOL and other internet portals that allowed people to send email to each other and participate in chat groups. But still, for the most part, we sat and we stared.
The sheer immediacy of the clutter we now encounter in our daily lives leaves little time for sitting and staring. The entertainment and communication options now available are so ubiquitous that people generally little patience for sitting and staring. They want to be involved, to contribute, to feel they are part of a larger whole. This world-view demands connectivity, creativity and interactivity. The client I mentioned earlier fails to see this shift and because of that will most likely fail in her business endeavor.
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