Markets Are Conversations

"Markets are nothing more than conversations," p 76

 

1. There is no market for your PR message + taglines
2. There is no market when you keep everything a secret
3. There is no market for a controlled, mass announcement

 

First Things Last

"Free as in speech, not free as in free beer," saying from the digerati

 

The marketplace is -- as it's continually discussed -- simply a place for an exchange. The easiest and most common good: conversation + information. The sale is simply the end of that interaction (or a beneficial end for both parties.)

 

The marketplace blends the idea of the professional + the person, much like social media. If you try to separate them out...well, we'll see what can happen in that environment.

 

The Industustrial Interruption

In the age of mass marketing + mass production, the "message" of a company became a commodity; however, social media -- if you buy the opening posit of this chapter -- is that conversations destroy the marketplace for a centralized, top-down message

 

The Shipping View

"The message that gets broadcast to you, me, and the rest of the earth's population has nothing to do with me in particular. It's worse than noise. It's an interruption. It's the Anti-Conversation," p 79

 

If you believe that you can dominate the conversation with a meme without ever listening back, you will likely find yourself isolated (think of the Intel example later in this chapter). If you drop in, lay out your message and then leave...you have no idea what is happening after you go.

 

The Axe in Our Heads

 

Networked Markets

"The very sound of the Web conversation throws into stark relief the monotonous, lifeless, self-centered drone emanating from Marketing departments around the world," p. 83 

 

• Metcalf's Law: the value of a network increases as the square of the number of users connected to it (2 people on IM = 2 squared, 3 people on IM, 2 to the 3rd power, ect)
• Cluetrain Corollary: the level of knowledge on a network increases as the square of the users times the volume of conversation

 

The brings up the Twitter problem: how much is too much. Robert Scoble, one of the top 100 Twitterati, had a fairly famous meltdown as his users soared towards 20,000. 100 seems to be the number we can handle.

 

When Push Comes to Suck

Push technology should have worked based upon our understanding of Licklider's view of software agents. It didn't however. Understanding why will help us understand agents a bit better:

1. agents are designated by the user to find information that is relevant
2. those agents gather information from disperate sources
3. those agents then place that information in one siloed place

 

Based on that understanding, why would push technology not work?

 

The Market That Talk Built

"The most important lesson Linux hackers teach is that whole markets can rapidly arise out of conversations that are independent not only of business, but also of government, education, and other powerful but hidebound institutions, thanks in large measure to something hackers helped invent precisely for that purpose: the Internet.", p 86

 

In "The Longing," we discussed the reasons why corporations resist using these technologies (Risk Avoidance, Smoothness, Fairness, Discretionary attention). This is the core of the Open versus Closed system. This section, though, illustrates that the open can exist with (and oftentimes be partnered with) closed systems.

 

If you try to control everything, all the time...you're digital community will wither and die. 

• A brief note about the founding of AA

 

Private Relations

PR, in it's most base form, fails to realize that stories are being developed through word-of-mouth; they can't be created or manipulated around the truth. These ideas, in a networked world, fall apart quickly and reduce the trust of an organization.

 

Advertising vs. World of Web

Direct adverting on the Web has it's disadvantages; however there is a movement afoot to track "awareness" on the Web much like they do in traditional campaigns.

 

However, the smart advertiser can engage with their customers online, listen to what they have to say and make their experience better.

 

• A brief discussion on monetizing your community (ACK!)

 

Sites of Salt

Marketing and corporate communications paint a picture that no consumer believes; for every message that comes out, there are dozens more -- important messages -- that don't get out.

 

To avoid this "brochure" mentality, your sites should include:

1. a voice
2. a point of view
3. access to helpful people
4. dialogue 

 

Fair Market Price

The Web + the marketplace of exchange have removed the idea that prices are set and truth is finalized.

 

Demand-side economics drives a large portion of what we do now. You lose some control over pricing when that happens, but customers will be by and large interact because they are "vested"

 

• A brief discussion of the razor + blades theory of Web business (based on the MP3 section

 

Assume the Position

"Each points to a gap between who your company is and what it says. The gap is where inauthenticity lives, and the exposure of the gap constitutes corporate embarrassment," p 100

 

When you have to lay out, in great detail, what your employees can and can't say, you've entered into a losing proposition. You must let people speak in their own voices.

 

Enterting the