It’s not a medium, it’s a focus group
: The Wall Street Journal (free link) sums up companies who are monitoring blogs to get the pulse of the market.
4 responses to “It’s not a medium, it’s a focus group”
-
More on the Democratization of Media
I think the end of the drama is written upon the wall. The digitally connected masses will soon remove the mass from media. Here’s why:
1. The balance of power has already shifted to the masses in a sort of first mover advantage. The backlash coming from the entertainment industry around file sharing is reflexive. It happens *after* networked mobs creatively, unexpectedly, disruptively take technology into their own hands. The tension between the entertainment industry and the online world simply represents that shift of power and control away from mass media.
2. What will the entertainment industry be when consumers en masse, produce their own “as good or better than” diversions? Blogs spontaneously exploded news into millions of niches, leaching the mass from news media. Cheap high tech multimedia production tools will soon provide grass roots entertainment more riveting than Hollywood fare. The imagination and creativity of crowds is absolutely capable of producing open source, distributed entertainment exponentially increasing in novelty. The mass entertainment industry will soon compete with high quality virtually free grass roots alternatives from the digitally connected masses, and take its rightful place as another niche. What “mass” will be left to market to?
3. Litigation takes a lot of time. Since technological advances also accelerate events [blogspot.com], inflexible, knee jerk systems will eventually be overwhelmed with the speed of disruption. There will soon not be enough time to react before the next volley. Future shock paralyses the most inflexible systems first. So, ultimately, in a digitally networked world, control is distributed to the masses.
Ted
-
I’ve posted my notes on a presentation that covers how BlogPulse used their tools to monitor the internet “buzz” on Wal-Mart:
Measuring Wal-Mart’s “Buzz” -
I think there are currently some serious concerns with BlogPulse. I have blogged about it here:
http://www.thebasement.com/blojsom/blog/thebasement/Technology+%26+Culture/2005/06/24/BlogPulse_is_Broken.html
-Matt -
I see people who have subscribed or bookmarked feeds for searches or tags on my site. I also see referrers that were searches for brands. I think using blogs to listen to customers is really catching on.
Hopefully it will have positive consequences for consumers.
