If we assume that an era of Choice began with the introduction of search, then what does 15 years of search tell us about broad social (trending) attitudes towards data ownership?
If pioneers on a specific frontier were allowed what seems like an unlimited license to gather and collect a specific critical resource, and suddenly, the needs of new (organized) generations of settlers demand change, what message does that convey about the needed structural changes to the market?
If trends are better measured based upon movement instead of any relationship to time elapsed, what do the trends surrounding search and social media tools offer as insight?
If demographics offer the picture of cross currents in these results, what new measurement techniques does it suggest? Does it suggest to us anything about macro changes in market (for content) psychology?
Are there other market based businesses that are really obvious and can offer a model for change that is both practical, attainable, and reasonable?
Does the emergence of open source content platforms suggest that even popular pioneers are subject to market discipline based on the consumer's preferred time line? (I am thinking about Apple as I write this but there are other examples) In the absence of competing platforms, pioneers hold that advantage until incremental innovation evolves and Choice is allowed. In the case of needs seen as "basic utilities", won't markets react to these perceived basic needs faster? Are these questions particularly timely for Facebook? Is there an example here for Nielsen and all for-profit content companies? Who gets to decide these issues....if this is indeed the Era of Choice?
Sometimes change comes slowly because participation in trends is slow to accumulate. Sometimes incremental technology innovations are needed and that takes discovery time. Sometimes both happen close together.
Over time, how we (collectively) value ideas and things of all kinds changes. It changes not only because outside circumstances change but because our collective perceptions of value changes and that gets expressed through the various groups to which we belong. Businesses lag these changes, sometimes a lot, sometimes only a little. The (industrial) (r)Evolution of Media will be a series of fast moving changes designed for markets of content consumers. The boundaries between generations will be flash points for this change but extrapolating past values and behavior based on demographics may well be less useful than ever. If social media tools are teaching us anything it is that specialization is the driving point of these cool new tools. This tends to happen in smaller groups, not larger ones. In the digital environment it will be increasingly hard to maintain any monopoly or an oligopoly for long because the only barriers to entry left are regulation and since media (generally) is built into our founding agreement as a People, we should not allow the government Of The People to regulate a core freedom in a way that favors narrow specific interests.
If open source is indeed the power of the market talking back to enterprises demanding transparency and competition, then what other critical market based businesses might be mirrored in order to serve the changing demands of content consumers? It's worth talking about. The message the market is sending; the message we are collectively sending is that the era of government controlled media oligopolies is closing out now and that Choice is the overriding impulse in all aspects of the content experience. Over time this will be seen as America's growth business.
Four kinds of critical market metrics can be seen changing in the market for content in one short video. I doubt this is a fad or limited to some dead end niche. This small, young group deserves a lot of credit for listening. Is Facebook an unexpected echo of the dot com era? Only time will tell...but then directional movement combined with increasing participation is the definition of a trend. Let's take the time to watch.
Choice as seen through The Diaspora Project
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