SCENESETTER � Goodbye New Media: Hello Social Media

Adriana Cronin-Lukas of the Big Blog Company put the rise of blogging and the networked world into perspective at Content 2.0 on 6th June 2006, exploring how individuals aggregate and pursue their interests through social media in ways that the neither superchannels like Google and AOL, nor mainstream media and brands can control...

Report by Deirdre Molloy

[Register and post your own comments on this article below...]

Download this session from the Content 2.0 Podcasts!

Adriana remarked that she was asked to talk about superchannels and aggregators but concurring with Marc Canter she said it�s really about the individual. So she began by asking who did they channel and aggregate and what for? To explore these questions, she took herself as a blogger case study.

Recalling how she came to blogging, Adriana explained she had been politically active but became disillusioned with politics and started blogging �because it was better than shouting at the TV�. She joined the group blog Samizdata and they aggregated and found a crowd, even though they never assumed they would. People came to the group and aggregated around them. She became famous for 15,00 people, which was a shock to them at the time.

Reputation management also became an issue � as per the example of the photo of Adriana with a gun that is still on the internet 2 years later. Her most lasting claim to fame, she noted wryly, was being credited with the Moonbat story on Wikipedia.

In the beginning there was no blogosphere, Adriana recalled, but Google brought people together. There were filters such as Instapundit and there were A-listers like Doc Searles and Dave Winer and others, but this was still a very close-knit community. Individualist she may be blogging became very social. The social aspect expressed itself in blog rankings, people started to create these ecosystems. One of the earliest was called �the Truth Laid Bear�; you could call it a social network for grown-ups. The point, Adriana reflected, was we didn�t need any portals � we found each other.

�The explosion of consumer-generated content is the long tail of production�

People congregate and aggregate in a way you can�t control, Adriana continued. The growing blogosphere power law was a precursor to The Long Tail. She used the illustration of the peacock because the tail is more spectacular than the body. The Long Tail is premised on the scenario that if you have unlimited access to content that the internet allows, the greater sales are in the long tail not the best sellers, as long as costs are low enough to allow the retailer to offer nearly unlimited choices. There�s evidence that consumer habits change when faced with unlimited nearly choices, she noted.

The Long Tail makes sense of business in the networked world. At the moment is applies mostly to distribution. But she�s more interested in long tail of production and the explosion of consumer user-generated content is the long tail of production. In 2002 bloggers started to emerge from their own corners, the journalists started getting interested because bloggers were parasiting on their content. But it�s like the birdies and hippos metaphor � the birds are parasites but the relationship is symbiotic.

So it�s not like the useless discussion that we had in the US blogosphere about are bloggers journalists and are they going to destroy journalism � pointless then as it is now with the debate happening belatedly in the UK. But the debates do throw up the ideas of credibility, authority and professionalism. What many journalists discovered is that they are no longer selling news, news became a commodity, they were selling audiences but they didn�t realise that. They became a type of aggregator, selling news based on the brand of the newspaper or their personal name brand.

In February 2003 Google bought Pyra Labs (creators of Blogger), and in October 2005 AOL bought Weblogs Inc. There were lots of other blogging attempts by the superchannels but these were the most notable milestones. People began to notice the business potential. They reached out and plucked something out of the blogosphere.

�The challenge isn�t just about revenue models, it is actually about redefining media�s core competencies when they are not the only producers of content�.

What was happening with the big content providers? Old media and new media are contrasted but in fact, new media is just working on the same old media business model in the digital space. If you look at the packaging of content, it�s pushed through pipelines to aggregated �eyeballs� and the money is used as fuel. This is the supply chain of media in the channel world and we�re seeing some of that also in the networked world. The format has changed but the substance and business model hasn�t. She believes the challenge isn�t just about revenue models � lots of companies are looking for new revenue streams � it is actually about redefining their core competencies when they are not the only producers of content.

The true digital divide is between old and new media on one side, and social media on the other. New media is looking at how to come to terms with the online world, focusing on behavioural targeting, contextual advertising and branded communities. They are skirting the edges of the networked world where the social media comes from.

Social media and old media would never meet, she continued, if it were not for the one pivot � which is the individual. If the same people who are podcasting, blogging, tagging and doing stuff (ie. producing content) that�s to do with their own individual space were not also the same people that new media are trying to target as their market she didn�t� think that we would have seen such a big collision as we are seeing now.

Adriana stressed that she doesn�t care about new or old media but about "tools that allow me to do what I want to do". What we are seeing is old media moving at speed to new media and often they don�t differentiate between new and social media. It�s the new media who are starting to ask � what does this new area mean and how can we appropriate it and start to use and understand it?

�Which is more powerful � the network CNN owns or the network no-one owns?�

Citing the John Stewart incident on the CNN Crossfire cable show in 2004, she noted how Stewart assassinated co-host Tucker Carlson live on cable. The episode got 400,000 viewers on CNN but the same segment was copied onto the internet and got 5 million on the internet over a short period of time. Now it�s on YouTube, so how do you measure it, you can�t count it any more. So which is more powerful � the network CNN owns or the network no-one owns? On the internet we can all swim in the same pool as content created by Universal, Disney, etc. The tools are cheap and easy.

Hugh MacLeod asked from the audience, if his blog gets more �eyeballs� than 95% of magazines in this country, or newspapers like The Scotsman, why aren�t big media companies and ad agencies interested? Businesses are paying traditional media far too much, he reckoned.

Why use advertising as the only way to monetise attention, Adriana responded. There is no such thing as free content online � businesses and media owners and bloggers are getting paid in attention. Mainstream media (MSM) has a very crude way of monetising � it�s called advertising. It�s a value-for-value exchange. But really, attention is the payment, so how do we monetise it, if at all?

Bypassing the big networks becomes a reality and the content they produce gets distributed in a way they couldn�t have forseen, she reiterated. What media do not understand is that there�s no such thing as the ultimate audience any more. The viewer and user is also a producer and distributor. First it was geeks, then news junkies, then teenagers, then anybody. There has been an explosion of creativity and expertise and content. Some superchannels try to act as filters or aggregators, some as media. But they don�t really know yet if they want to be aggregators or content producers. They are portals but they are helping us to access networks of other people, for now.

�Once the tools � especially filtering � become better, the superchannels and portals may be bypassed too��

The blogosphere is a very messy and chaotic but by it�s nature it does produce tools for understanding and navigating it. Before RSS and Technorati bloggers just had Google but they still found each other. The reason why tools like RSS and other aggregators came about was to allow people navigate, filter, communicate, share and collaborate with those people in your network � that is called the blogosphere.

Once the tools � especially filtering � become better, the superchannels and portals may be bypassed too, Adriana surmised. Although the younger generation is very fickle, the portals and aggregators will survive if their business model is lateral enough. As such, you can look at Google, Amazon and eBay from a different point of view. Sam Sethi summarised this at the �mashup* event at the RSA a few months ago, she noted: Google sells reach, Amazon sells reviews, eBay sells reputation. If you can see what they owe their success to maybe that�s a way to see how the superchannels can survive.

�This bypassing of the gatekeeper is the most important meme to emerge from Web 2.0�

Some see the internet as just another channel, but Adriana posited the internet as the networked space that surrounds the traditional pipes that content is pushed down; it is corroding those pipes and the content is leaking out everywhere. If you treat internet as just another channel you�re going to run into some clashes both on a format and etiquette level. (see NMK�s Blogging: A Real Conversation? June 2005 event report)

Media used to sell audiences, but they thought they sold content. Now they are trying to sell content because audiences are fleeing.

The pressures on the superchannels and aggregators are mounting, she said. In April 04 � April 05 we saw the arrival and overnight ascendancy of Myspace, Bebo, MyYearbook and Tagged.com, and the growth of Wikipedia. Yahoo declined and AOL declined. So teens are moving to something edgy already. The young audience are so fickle and the speed of change is so great that it�s unlikely or impossible to lock people in.

To observe the digital natives now is a bit premature because they are still learning how to network. MySpace and other social networks are providing an experimental space and experience of networking but she believes that once tools are better in the open space they will move there because it gives you far more power and ability to control your own image and identity. This bypassing of the gatekeeper is the most important meme to emerge from the Web 2.0 buzzword.

�If I feel you are stopping me from doing something and abusing my attention I will re-route and go somewhere else��

The internet is a network. Digital natives � or Generation Y � are bypassing the gatekeeper. If the portals superchannels, which are currently enablers, stop being that and start being gatekeepers they will be bypassed, people will route around them. The internet sees control or censorship as damage and re-routes around it because it�s individuals pursuing their own interests, motivations and desires. As such, if there is something I want to do that you are helping me to do I�ll stick around, I�ll even be aggregated and superchannelled, but if I feel you are stopping me from doing something and abusing my attention I will re-route and go somewhere else.

As long as the internet stays capable of re-routing, that will happen. The current �net neutrality� debate is instructive in this regard, noted Adriana, as it�s about that ability to re-route and create open space enough for the small people to compete and create the kind of content that bypasses the old portals and superchannels. We are probably going to see something like an early blogosphere where people create their own social networks but with better tools; bigger, wider and parallel to the traditional media.

Content 2.0 - 2006 conference Website:
http://www.content2point0.com/2006/

About Adraiana Cronin-Lukas:
Adriana founded the Big Blog Company, the UK's first specialist blogging consultancy, in early 2003. Since then she has advised companies in Europe and the US on how to integrate blogging, RSS, and other social media into their online marketing activities. She also advises PR firms and Media companies on strategy for their clients in the Web 2.0 environment. A former KPMG management consultant, broker, and risk analyst, her clients include the Adam Smith Institute, National Opinion Poll, Digital Journal Online, Social Affairs Unit, and Kable. In addition to being co-editor of one of the world's top 100 most influential blogs, Adriana writes about the application of emerging technologies to online marketing and external and internal communications at mediainfluencer.net.

OTHER CONTENT 2.0 SESSIONS REPORTS

Content 2.0: Connecting Content To People

Content 2.0: Marketing 2.0 Forum

Content 2.0: Can Brands Be Trusted?

Content 2.0: The Future Of Web Search

Content 2.0: Folksonomies - What Are They Good For?

Content 2.0: Search & Enjoy Forum

Content 2.0: The Invisible Culture

Beers & Innovation (music special) @ Content 2.0