Tagged: Richard Stacy

Gutenberg and the social media revolution: an investigation of the world where it costs nothing to distribute information

Here is the full text of an article I wrote for the Capco Journal of Financial Transformation.  Unfortunately the original is no longer available online – only as published by myself here on this blog.  If you like this article you may want to take a look at what I have written here, which in the most part are pieces which expand on some of the themes outlined in the article below.

Abstract

This article exposes the impact of a fundamental shift in the way information moves within our society which is generating creeping obsolescence for the business models of organisations involved in the institutionalised provision or mediation of information, be they newspapers or banks, as well as creating a new information space which is currently called social media. Continue reading →

Walled gardens versus plant nurseries – and the death of media agencies

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with a very large media (buying) agency.  The agency was proposing an idea for a client which involved creating a place within MySpace.  The logic for this was two-fold.  The client’s target demographic was 18-25 and a MySpace place would represent a walled garden that this group would feel comfortable within.  The term ‘walled garden’ was presented, by their digital expert, as being a good thing. Continue reading →

Antony Mayfield is right – for now

Across on my link blog recently I drew attention to an excellent e-book that has recently been published by Antony Mayfield and iCrossing. One of the predictions that Antony makes is that digital agencies will become clients’ agency of record in the near future – a prediction I took issue with in a comment on Antony’s blog. I felt that PR agencies were better placed to assume this role because they are more accustomed to operating across media channels or through channels which you can’t own or control – but since I am essentially still a PR and Anthony works for a digital agency, you could understand the difference of opinion. Continue reading →

The Gutenberg Principle

I have long been talking about the social media revolution in the context of the invention of the printing press and moveable type and the fact that Gutenberg cemented a marriage between content and distribution which the phenomenon called social media is now separating – allowing content to free itself from its means of distribution. I think this dates back to an excellent Economist feature back in April 2006 – which used Gutenberg’s moveable type and the moveable type blogging platfrom as illustrations of the book-ends to the era of mass media, but didn’t take the analogy much further than that. Continue reading →

This Social Media Thing – why be bothered?

I have been engaged on a quest to distill, as concisely as possible, what ‘This Social Media Thing’ is all about and why it is important.  This is my latest offering – three reasons why it is important and four things you should do about it.  Presented as a ‘one-off blog’ and also available as a pdf so it can travel on the email train.

What gastronomy tells us about the future of newspapers

I was recently looking for information on the decline of newspapers in the US when a Google search turned up a piece by Russell Baker from the 16 August 2007 edition of the New York Review of Books.

A quick scan revealed that it didn’t contain the information I was looking for but a comment caught my eye. The author made the following assertion. “How the internet might replace the newspaper as a source of information is never explained by those who assure you it will”. Continue reading →

Being Loic

Here is a fascinating video that demonstrates the two big problems with social media – time and complexity. Loic is demonstrating what it takes to be a social media citizen – and if being a social media citizen means being Loic – we can forget engagement with social media ever being a mass activity. This is because being Loic requires a lot of time and a lot of geekiness – and there is no way we can expect Average Citizen to do the things Loic does in the way he currently does them. Take a look.

Continue reading →

Four thoughts about Facebook

Number One: Facebook is not a social network – it is a facilitator of social networking, an important distinction.

Number Two: To understand Facebook best – and therefore how to use it – think about where it came from and what it was designed to do, its optimum state. Continue reading →

Social media: four simple things every organisation needs to do

Responding to the whole social media thing is not easy. On the one hand, it can seem can seem big and intimidating, demanding a whole re-think of the way an organisation communicates. Yet on the other, some of the easier or more accessible things that could be done, such as starting to put information on YouTube, creating a Facebook page or a blog just don’t seem to generate the interest or numbers that are going to shift the needle or start to compare with the effectiveness and reach of your current marketing and communications. Continue reading →