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I just finished reading a recent post by Jeff Jarvis titled, Media after the site, which explores two ideas – what the next phase of media will be, and how we’ll determine which information to trust. I think he put together some good thoughts, but I’d like to expand on them.
Jarvis starts with a vision of the next evolution of media:
The next phase of media, I’ve been thinking, will be after the page and after the site. Media can’t expect us to go to it all the time. Media has to come to us. Media must insinuate itself into our streams.
He proposes that this idea is personified in @stephenfry, a guy with a huge Twitter following that has built a brand out of himself – via the content he creates, which then spreads and finds its niches by getting retweeted and distributed by his followers. The idea is supplemented with a quote from a NYT story:
If the news is that important, it will find me.
He identifies this as a shift in the role and function of information on the web – that ‘the website’ will become more of an archive for information, but it will constantly have new life breathed into it when it enters the ‘stream’ of the real-time web:
Content will insinuate itself into streams and streams will insinuate themselves back into content. The great Mandala.
I think Jarvis made some good observations, but I think there’s a bigger picture to be considered. I’m going to rephrase his observations in a larger context:
The real-time web has changed the way we access and distribute information.
I’ve been fleshing out these ideas over the past few months, and I think looking at Jarvis’s points through the lens of the 3 key drivers of the web’s evolution brings a bit of clarity. Historically, as complexity increases, we develop new methods of sifting through all the information – to separate quality content from noise. It’s no different on the web. There are millions of blogs and sources of news and information, but how do we get to the gooey caramel center of stuff that matters to us?
Enter the real-time web. (which at the moment is Twitter). What makes Twitter different is that it’s not so much a social network, but rather a massive Idea Exchange. Critics say that Twitter’s 140 character limit is making us stupid, but I think it’s just the opposite: We’re being challenged to convey information in less space, without it losing its value. This is a method for managing complexity.
As Jarvis says, the information from blogs and websites ‘enters the stream’ (the twitterstream), gets chewed on and kicked around and validated via retweets, and then ends up back on our blogs where we break it down, analyze it, and try to find new insights hidden within it. If we think we’ve found an insight, we throw it back into the twitterverse and see what people think. And hence the cycle continues.
It’s a beautiful process we’re participating in, trying to collectively make sense of information. Whereas Jarvis says the process is exemplified by @stephenfry, I’m saying multiply that by millions. Each person is just one component of a worldwide net; little hubs that transmit information. You don’t need to have a million followers to be able to convey a message, you just need the message, and the information will travel.
I’m seeing the real-time web evolving into a collective intelligence, a type of ‘global brain’, which I outlined a little further in ‘Twitter’s Intelligent, Welcome to Web 3.0‘. I think that’s the big picture idea that Jarvis didn’t directly mention, though he dances around it. He mentions how having access to ‘the stream’ will be increasingly important and relevant as our “always-connected and always-on devices” become more seamless and ubiquitous. I agree .
Once we really realize how to unlock the potential power of the real-time web, why wouldn’t we want to stay connected?
The 2nd idea Jarvis addresses: how do we prioritize the information, and who do we trust to filter or explain it?
He references Clay Shirky’s post on Algorithmic Authority to explain that we’re developing new systems for getting quality information – and that’s by trusting other humans to filter it for us. But who do you trust? I think Shirky’s whole post was summarized when he said this:
“…the criticism that Wikipedia, say, is not an “authoritative source” is an attempt to end the debate by hiding the fact that authority is a social agreement, not a culturally independent fact…”
This statement speaks directly to the kinds of shifts we’re experiencing in how we define “experts” and, to a degree, how we define “knowledge.” We’re beginning to really embrace the idea that we decide who’s an authority, and we’re doing that by gauging the value we’re brought by what the person is saying.
Meaning – there’s too much information out there. When we find people who are able to bring us the information that’s meaningful and relevant to us, that fits into some larger context, that we can apply in our own lives and careers in order to keep us ahead of the curve – that’s who becomes an authority. We trust them because they bring us value.
I think that this is what’s left of the web’s evolution. The point of all of this was to find a better way to connect people, ideas, and information. Now it’s a matter of refining that process. That means developing better ways to build our knowledge networks by knowing who’s out there (I’m calling for a methodology for visualizing human capital), and developing better ways to tag, store, and retrieve information.
From there, we’ll be able to really start exploring how to collectively make sense of information and solve problems. Because yes, there will always be those individuals that help us clarify information and bring it into focus, but they are still just a node. The brilliance of where the web is going is that we can pull apart and reconstruct reality collectively as we go, in real time, and at a scale that has simply never been possible before.
________
thanks to @grahamhumph for pointing out Jarvis’s post.
emergent by design 
I am a walking, talking algorithm. Surrounded by other walking, talking algorithms. Nice.
Great post Venessa. You touched on some really interesting points concerning the evolution of media on the web. Approaching this from a new media marketing perspective, I can really relate to your discussion on how we filter information and define “experts.” The shifts taking place online in how we identify sources of information authority is synonimous with the ongoing evolution in marketing to determine brand authorities. As media becomes decentralized and information is openly shared on the web, marketers must look beyond the old established media channels to find the relevant voices of influence for their brands. From the business writer at a top newspaper, to an engaged consumer writing product reviews on their blog, anyone can become an authority source because we determine the value of the information they share. It seems that you are describing a democratization in the way that we communicate and establish authority on the web.
Thanks for your thoughts, Erik –
I’m glad you were able to link ideas from the post to something meaningful in your industry.
I’d be curious to know how this approach changes your web strategy. For instance, I don’t think it’s about # of followers. You could have 10,000 followers, most of who don’t really pay attention to your tweets, or 100 that REALLY believe in your brand. If those 100 have a degree of influence among their followers, you’re going to have a network effect.
So shouldn’t ‘new media marketing’ be about building relationships with influentials that will spread your message?
I’m glad you posed that question Venessa, because it brings to light an important misconception that persists in marketing. A lot of people still hold to the old PR & marketing tactics that MORE is better. While that may work if you’re Ashton Kutcher, I really wouldn’t advise it for any company seeking to better understand their customer base and build their brand.
Before the rise of the web and social networks, marketers and PR pros connected with their customers by catering to the media – in the hopes of sending out blanketed messages aimed at mass audiences. It was an ineffective one-way dialogue that prevented companies from truly understanding their target markets, and how to better serve them. The exchange of information and various forms of conversation taking place on the web, provides a great opportunity for companies to listen to what is being said about their brands. This does not mean that all feedback is created equal. As in most cases, you must get your hands dirty and dig through some junk to find what’s valuable. However, it’s necessary to monitor all that is being said about your brand – good, bad, insignificant – in order to find the authentic voices that you want to connect with, and also to become aware of areas of concern. From there, it is as you aptly put it, “about building relationships with influentials,” in the hopes of developing loyalty into advocacy.
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Venessa,
Good post and an important debate. The weakness in Jarvis’s approach, which is often present in much of the current thinking, is the focus on distribution structures. Sites, pages, streams, networks even – they all take as their starting point the distribution or transport of information. The reason we tend to think in these terms (especially former journalists like Jarvis) is that for 600 years, distribution has shaped information – it has been the dominant partner. The search for point / places / people (expert) of influence is also conditioned by this “distribution thinking”.
However, social media is eroding the advantage that lies in distribution – because the ability to distribute is not longer a scarce resource. This has profound implications for concepts such as influence and trust, because they will not longer be found in the structures (people, places, channels) that distribute information, they are migrating to the information itself. Its not really about the future of media (as per Jeff Jarvis) because the concept of media is dissovling. Media is a distribution dependant feature, not an information dependant feature. If we want to understand the future we need to shift out focus away from distribution and look more closely at the information. As you say – it is a shift from who an expert is, to the value of what the expert says. And from there it is a short step to challenging the notion of their being “an expert”. Anybody and everybody is an expert (potentially) – dependant on the value they contribute. The concept of expert as a single and consistent source of trust is a distribution dependant concept. What you say (information dependant), who or what says it (distribution dependant).
I would suggest that information will be the bearer of its own influence in the shape of some form of social tagging. How this will work and what this will look like, I have no idea. All I know is that it is unlikely to look like anything we have seen before and certainly nothing like what we currently see as media.
The significance of the real-time web isn’t that it is real-time. It is that the immediacy of it dictates that it cannot be constrained within traditional distribution structures. Its just “out there” hanging in information space. Twitter is the first “thing” that has shed itself of a large part of its distribution dependancy – with a Twitter tag being an almost completely information dependant feature. Real-time has allowed this to happen – its not what it is about. In fact, the real-time nature of Twitter is its greatest problem at the moment. Twitter tags only last for a couple of weeks and then they die, even if the individual tweets within them still remain.
Its only when we can start to shed ourselves of “distribution thinking” that we will start to make some real progress in understanding what’s coming down the line. This is tricky because it is totally new. It involves junking much of what we know about information theory – which is obviously challenging!
Richard,
Thank you. These are good points. Here’s my takeaway:
#1. An expert used to be the one that had the information. Now that we all have access to the information, the experts are the ones who:
a.) know which information is worth knowing
b.) know how that information fits into the big picture
You will still have your experts in specific fields/industries, of course. It’s not just seeing how everything fits, but knowing what to do with it, so I’ll add one more bullet point:
c.) know how to apply the information
#2. Information just IS.
I think this is what you were saying, that when distribution goes away, information just IS. It’s not coming from a certain person/place, it’s just circulating and existing. We pull the pieces out of the ether that we want to examine, and add new things to the mix.
I think this idea is really going to impact the traditional educational system. The knowledge isn’t ‘owned’ by the schools, where we need to go there to get it. What we need is someone to show how to find the info and how to make sense of it. A teacher’s role is going to shift more towards being a facilitator, towards teaching students how to LEARN, not how to memorize just to pass a test. There’s going to be a lot more of peer learning going on, and informal learning happening outside of the classroom.
But that’s an aside. I do agree with what you said that ‘information will be the bearer of its own influence’, but I still think there will be people who are seen as sources of trust/understanding/guidance.
This whole thing feels very organic and holistic to me, which I love. I think a lot of the structures we’ve imposed on our minds and our society as to what’s what are being broken down and reframed. We’re having to completely rethink the meaning of concepts like “knowledge” and “intelligence.”
I am also seeing a convergence in these ideas with much of the early early philosophies for understanding the world and our place in it. For instance, if you look at early Buddhism and other eastern philosophies, there is a huge focus on “mindfulness”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness)
I think there is so much baggage with ‘religion’, and unfortunately, the western spin on eastern philosophy is classified as ‘new age’, which makes it feel like a bunch of spiritual crap that someone is selling me.
Forget all that. The idea of mindfulness is the idea of consciousness, of awareness, of real ‘presence.’ It means not focusing on the past or the future, as most of us do all the time, but really being ‘in the moment.’ 5,000 years later, Csíkszentmihályi “coined” this term as Flow, lol.
To me, the new ‘immediacy’ of information is changing the way we interpret information. As you said, it’s not distribution dependent. Now that all information is available all the time, in a sense it starts to break down the way we view history. Instead of it being ‘back then,’ it’s kind of ‘always now.’ We’re able to draw on the lessons/mistakes from the past in new ways, comparing them to today, making them alive again by drawing parallels and seeing the relevance.
Do you see the connection?
I feel like technology is pulling is into a cultural awakening. We are becoming more present as our information becomes more present. We’re beginning to really experience things NOW, and drawing on everything we’ve known and everything we’re aspiring towards and figuring out how to apply it now. We’re becoming aware that we manifest reality.
This is a big idea, but I find it extremely empowering. I mean, what happens when we all have the internet in some form, whether it’s via a computer or a mobile device? What happens when we’re all able to access information, exchange it, and learn from each other? It’s called a revolution. We are in the middle of a revolution. It’s not a ‘social media fad’, it’s a fundamental shift in human culture.
On your point re experts – I wouldn’t have too much faith in the longevity of the concept of an expert. Experts and what we currently call expertise rests within institutionalised (distribution dependant) structures – it is not a process based phenomena. Remember that James Surowiecki showed in his ‘Wisdom of the Crowds’ that a crowd can produce a more accurate result that any individual expert – given certain conditions – and of course social media provides most of these conditions.
You are right – the time when we all have access to all the information is quite scarry and difficult to conceive – and it does allow us to bring the past into real time. The one problem is that for this (whatever this turns out to be) to work, we have to be able to capture and hold all the ‘real time’ information – so that it also becomes available to future real time. The danger is that we see it as real time as a current phenomena, something of the moment and therefore something that is disposable. Thus, as I have highlighted before, we are in danger of losing history (lets call history ‘future real time’). The #iranelection twitter tag, for example, for all its importance and significance as a historical event no longer exists in the from at which it existed when the key events were taking place. The tweets may exist – but it was the space that the tag represented that was critical in giving these tweets context. #iranelection as a space is very different today from what it was a few months ago – yet we only have access to the current space. We need to stop seeing this sorts of things as real-time and realise that they are only real-time on account of the speed and scale at which they can occur. http://richardstacy.com/2009/06/18/twitter-is-making-and-then-destroying-history/
Anyway – lets encourage the conversation about these sorts of things. I believe there are not enough people focused on them at the moment – too many technologists not enough historians involved in social media at the moment!
Vanessa,
Great post, but I think you are not going far enough in your thoughts. You continue to refer to information and say that the real time web changes how we find, catalog, and store information (paraphrasing).
I am here to postulate that the “real”real-time web does not worry about information. Information becomes part of the semantic fibers of the ubiquitous web. It is no longer information, it is now fibers of this new network that semantically analyzes and categorizes all its components (and in which we humans as well as data, information, elements, etc. become parts of it).
By assigning infinite metadata (dynamically) to each element in there, you can then semantically assign the best possible information (or element or whatever we end up calling it) to the best place in real time. So, then, it is no longer an issue of storing and searching for the right information, it is an issue of automatic, immediate classification based on a specific semantic model.
As for reputation, each element will have its own reputation level and trust level which will, ironically, shift and adapt by situation – considering far more than the specific analysis of the context only, but also stretching to previous uses, genesis, purpose, intent, context, etc. All these classifications can be made in split time (or faster with new flash-state and hyper-memory storage solutions) and a decision can then be made on the specific need and meta-data semantically analyzed per element.
Too far-fetched? We shall be doing this in a few (3-6) years at most, if we continue in current evolution. About the same time as widely deploying an Authority and Trust model for critical mass adoption.
What do you think? Should I go to sleep earlier tomorrow? 🙂
Esteban,
I don’t quite understand what you are saying – but I believe it is right! I think the assignment of metadata you refer to is what I call social tagging.
Richard,
That is probably one of the nicest compliments, or best comebacks someone ever gave me.
Social tagging is one of the applications, but I foresee a place where tagging is automatically done and then enhanced by social channels. As in correcting the work of computers. It is indeed an interesting place… the future.
Esteban
Esteban,
First, let me say that I’ve been enjoying reading the work you’re doing on developing a roadmap to Social CRM over on your blog. (http://www.estebankolsky.com/)
I agree with what you’ve said here, and I think the response I just gave to Richard above applies here too. All information is becoming collectively available within the cloud of the ubiquitous web.
I do agree that metadata and tagging is going to allow ‘good’ info to bubble to the top, but don’t you think we’ll still need people to decide how seemingly disparate information fits together? People to help make sense of the info and bring it together to gain new insights?
Machines may be able to do this for us someday, but I think those would have to be intelligent machines. AI. We’re not quite there yet…..
I would both agree with you that we are not there yet, but also offer that we are probably further than most people think.
Automated tagging (semantic assignment), categorization engines, and self-learning bots are working quite well in separate places right now. What if we could bring them together? Some of this stuff has been tried in KM systems in the past few years, with varying degrees of difficulty. Alas, the biggest problem is that to make it work still requires more work and commitment that any organization is willing to put in considering the potential outcome.
I don’t think we are talking AI as much as we are talking well designed rules and metadata/tagging to help them move along.
(sorry it took so long to get back to you, needed to find the time – love you work)
it is an inside-out universe.
what we need to find cannot be avoided.
the medium is completely immaterial.
Venessa. Thanks for your blog posts. They always give me plenty to think about as I sort thru my thoughts and writings about how to teach social media strategy to my marketing students.
Thanks Denny. I’m about to start a 6 month experiment on January 1st, to see how much traffic & revenue I can generate for a local business in my town, JUST using social media. I’ll document it here, so hopefully that will be helpful for you & your students! It will be helpful for me too, to blend the theory with practice.
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