What is perhaps the greatest driver of consumer choice in business? (should I buy a Toyota or a Buick? Sony or Sanyo?) It is, of course, old-fashioned word of mouth (WOM). Still. Yep, the future of business looks a bit more like the past than you might think. What’s been happening around us is the […]
When is a Starbucks not a Starbucks? Apparently only when I’m in the grocery store, or a hotel or, I don’t know almost every place I ever encounter the behemoth’s logo in person. Confused? Me too. All I wanted was a bottle of water, a delicious slice of marble cake, and to pay for it […]
I have been in two minds these days, caught between the inner conviction I had nothing new to add to these week’s posts (plus I agree with most), and a faint surge to get down to basics & do some devil’s advocacy for good measure. As Internet can link me to any website in the […]
Florian Brody asks: Should we wait for a random start-up to come up with some new web technology to find out about the next major change of the media that defines our society? Well, from someone who hangs out with “random start-ups” here in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, I proffer that they are not […]
There is a great deal of understandable excitement about the potential of digital communications to help unleash the public service potential of journalism. Many journalists hope that new digital technologies will provide them with an opportunity to bypass the mainstream gatekeepers. Others believe that a non-professional form of public journalism can create a vibrant new […]
For those of you who prefer to hang out in pajamas, you can participate in the Global Forum from home. We Media GOES LIVE on May 3 and 4, at 9:00 am GMT / 4:00 am EST, on the conference Web site ), with live video, blog reports, live-chat discussions and podcasts. You can tune […]
So, one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World (Time Magazine, in both 2004 and 2005), Jeffrey Sachs, will beam into the We Media Global Forum via satellite from New York. Isn’t technology wonderful? Prof. Sachs is director of both The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the UN Millennium Project. Also new […]
The answer is that for the short-term–even in the broadband era–it isn’t likely. First, our largest media companies have a current political agenda that will further weaken the institution of journalism. They now seek – at the FCC and in Congress – to remove what remains of critical safeguards designed to ensure the public receives […]
The news media is often referred to as the Fourth Estate, alongside the other three Estates (church, nobility and merchant class) described by Edmund Burke, that comprised the body politic of 18th-century France. The Estates represented the acme of the social hierarchy – the powerful, established elite who determined how everyone else should worship and […]
In his kickoff post, Florian talks about well-connected societies using a “range of different media types available to them to exchange news, establish and maintain connections and establish history.” The last word, history, made me think about connectedness across time through your personal history. I use new media in so many different ways to stay […]