Fact over Hype
Today, one phrase catched my always-on ADD:
“The price of making a powerful statement is cheap compared to the cost of ads that don’t work”
How to buy Word of Mouth
by Roy H. Williams
From Collective to Collaborative
The web, since inception, has always been a very collective body. Myriad of connections between private and public interests had built it into its present form.
After a period of latency (circa early to mid 90’s), companies have since flocked the web up to the point where its commercialization is a growing concern for many (60s-style idealists?).
Yet today, the rapid dissemination of word-of-mouth in wikis, forums, blogs, etc. is empowering individuals to the detriment of organisations.
One excellent graph of such is Ross Mayfield’s graph
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/ross/171420476/)
Opinion leaders are emerging as the new firestarters that threaten the formal entities with what is now coined as “no-control PR”.
More, all of this is happening in a communal ecosystem based on hard to assess (therefore hard to fake) qualitative metrics as reputation and karisma. This time, cash alone cannot buy a way out as the old-economy leaders were accustomed to. Consequenses for businesses have huge long-term implications. The balance of power is shifting.
Last stats to date: 80 million MySpace pages, 40 million bloggers and nearly a million amateur encyclopedians. Call it the Age of Peer Production as Wired did in its 14.07 issue.
The collective mind becomes a collaborative one. Are you in-sync?