501derful.org
The post below about MySpace reminded me about the article in the July WIRED in which this quote appeared:
“To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the
printing press, the birth of mass media – which, incidentally, is what
really destroyed the old world of kings and aristocracies. Technology
is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the
establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking
control.”
The psych of the quote is that it’s from Rupert Murdoch, one of the world’s true media moguls. He owns a big piece of News Corp, the company that owns MySpace and a whole portfolio of mainstream media properties. It’s ironic to think of a billionaire as a key figure for the site that is causing so much consternation among adults in the US.
The article is interesting because it illustrates how the people with the really big bucks are struggling to figure out a way to monetize social networks. In the end you realize that, just as mainstream media (sometimes called "closed media" now) has always been primarily a marketing medium using various forms of content as filler to hold attention between ads, the new internet sites have the same goal: user-content becomes the filler for another marketing system that converts user/contributors into user/consumers. Perhaps it’s the old saying: The more things change the more they stay the same.
