.Next: Social Media vs. Social Change

    

     

NS: In the spirit of the current political debates, where do you net out on the argument that it is not the technology that's changing the media landscape, but instead the social change that's happening among key consumer groups that's influencing technological change?

   

GT: I actually agree with both premises. Technology has already drastically changed the media landscape, and the party is just gettin' started.

         

If you take for example tech-gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo; gossip blogs like Gawker, TMZ and Defamer; political blogs like DailyKos, Red State and Huffington Post; or general interest vlogs (video blogs) like Rocketboom and ZeFrank; each individually garner tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of viewers a day. There is no question that each of these sites disrupted the traditional media usage patterns of people once they gained steady followings.
    
Or take television, the nature of which is about to change dramatically because of advances in hardware like Apple's iTv and Akimbo. Among other things, both will enable users to watch whatever they want on their TV screens. With your remote, you'll be able to flip from Web-based content productions like LonelyGirl15, 39 Second Single orBlip Tv to content produced by your local CBS affiliate, the Village Voice, NPR, MTV, etc.

      

The beauty of it all is that the little guy with a video camera will now be able to compete head-to-head with the larger-scale media institutions. And that's supremely disruptive – and exciting!

    

At the same time, social change also is driving technological change. We're in an era now where we, the people formerly known as "the audience," want what we want, when we want it, delivered to us however we want it and, if we so choose, expect to have the option of playing a leading or supporting role in the creation of it, or not. The result of this newfound personal sense of control is forcing the market to develop newer, more accommodating technologies.

   

   

GT: While there are characteristics I can imagine, I'd be lying if I profess I know the answer to this question. I don't. And frankly, neither does anyone else, really. And that's the fun of it all. Together at Ketchum, we'll get to figure it out as we go.

   

    

GT: I'd say that to earn trust (a requisite for ‘being online’), one should do the following online:

     

GT: I think these companies would be smart to infringe on the PR space, or at least experiment therein. And conversely, PR agencies would be smart to infringe on the space of other marketing disciplines as well. The reality is that the personal-empowerment bomb has been dropped. Take advertising firms as an example. They're having to deal with getting Tivoed out of the equation. Talk about a profound shock to a core business model...

    

Again, I don't know the exact answer here, but I do know that now is probably a good time for PR agencies to push the envelop, diversify and experiment. At the same time, the PR industry should focus on figuring out how its core competencies translate into this new world.

   

    

GT: Companies should never fear the blogosphere. That said, organizations should also know that interacting with the blogosphere (and on the Web at large) does not automatically mean that they must blog.

    

Initially, participation in the blogosphere could just mean doing something as simple as actively reading and listening to what customers are saying about your products and services or those of your competitors. It's free market research, and no company should ever pass that up.

     

As PR practitioners, we have to realize that in this early stage in the evolution of new media some companies may not be able to go beyond that point – at least not just yet. We can expect to be doing a lot for our clients by way of educating them about engaging the blogosphere.

    

    

GT: If you think about the Internet as the backbone of a brand-new worldwide network that has within it an infinite amount of interactive channels, then the blurring that you describe above makes perfect sense. Every media outlet should be looking to expand its reach and have its content viewed in as many possible places and ways across the network.

    

To illustrate this point, Jeff Jarvis (author of the Buzz Machine blog) uses Jon Stewart's now famous appearance on CNN's Crossfire as an example. When Jon Stewart filleted Crossfire hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for their faux-argumentative style, only about 150,000 CNN viewers bore live witness to the event. CNN then had a perfect opportunity to expand its reach to a younger demographic by packaging the clip online in an embeddable, easily distributable format. Instead, CNN just went on with life.

    

Needless to say, viewers were hungry for more. They connected to Stewart's message and as of today, that clip has been viewed 3.8 million times on the ifilm site alone -- and probably millions of times more on other user-generated video sites. The bottom line: PR practitioners should be thinking that amid the exciting chaos around us, there's tremendous opportunity to experiment with thoughtful strategies that keep the clients' ultimate PR objectives clearly in mind.

   

     

GT: OK, I've got five words for you: ‘Special treat in a box.'

     

For those who don't know, NBC debuted a hilarious digital segment a few weekends ago on its show Saturday Night Live featuring singer Justin Timberlake and comic Andy Samberg "crooning a holiday song about making a gift to their girlfriends of their male anatomy," as The New York Times so delicately reported. Needless to say, the short was censored on network television, but NBC simultaneously uploaded a censored and uncensored versions of the short to the SNL and YouTube Web sites respectively.

      

Both subsequently spread like wildfire across the net (the uncensored version has garnered more than 15 million views to date on YouTube alone). The short, which originated in traditional media, bled into new media, where it then generated so much excitement that it appeared everywhere, from computer screens to iPods to P2P TV Players to cellphones and back, literally.

     

All innuendo aside, there's no arguing that this is a perfect example not only of how content can travel across the various media platforms, but also of how the various media converge and can coexist. And here I give props to the more ‘traditional’ NBC Universal for leading the charge on navigating this new network. In one fell swoop, NBC succeeded in reaching a younger market that would have otherwise never tuned in to SNL. NBC seems to be grasping that the new television set is one that will be virtually free of the unidirectional, mass-media network that so many viewers have grown to despise.