The tangled Web of Social network sites - a challenge to capitalism?
Big biz is so, so hungry to find a way to cash in on the rising stars of the internet, social networks like myspace that articles like this one fail to recognise the internal contradictions within their exhortations to find a way to profit from them. This article advises big biz to find ways to "use" such communities while avoiding exploitation... but surely "use" and "exploit" have the same meaning?The Hollywood Reporter's Entertainment Industry Columns - Entertainment Industry Articles - Entertainment Business Columns and Articles: "Forrester points to studies indicating that today's more socially connected buyers are less brand-loyal, less trusting and more independent. The only businesses that can succeed in this new social computing environment are the ones that can adapt to the new rules: Innovation is shifting from the top down to the bottom up, value is shifting from ownership to experience, and power is shifting from institutions to communities....
Forrester advises that media companies and marketers will need to become part of the online communities they play to, learn to discreetly use peer relations, avoid exploitation and corporate heavy-handedness, create custom applications, and incorporating existing collaboration tools and technology. Doing that is why Apple's iTunes claims 600 million downloads, 10 million accounts and $400 million in revenue in just two years."
Can a new economic model arise from within the new online communities to challenge the capitalist hegemony? I would love to live to see it.....
The final paragraph really makes me laugh with it's assumption that traditional media are invaluable in their role of educators of the great unwashed general public who would be total ignoramuses without their benevolent guidance....LOL
"What are the implications of creating a world in which consumers are privy only to the customized information, content and services they want, instead of what they need? It is the critical difference between flipping through a newspaper or scanning television newscasts and happening on stories that broaden and sensitize consumers to information they need for their own well-being. That well-rounded, spontaneous knowledge isn't likely from social networks, the reliance on which is sure to create an intellectual vacuum of sorts"
Since when did capitalist society provide according to need?
posted by Jen @ 4:30 pm
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