Comments on: Can There Ever be “Too Many Notes?”

By: LLiu

LLiu — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:04:28 +0000

Unstructured content (which includes social media) is increasing exponentially. Analytics/reporting is key to reveal/track/correlate emergent signals. I'm proud to say that Telligent has invested early to tackle this (huge) problem. You can read more about what we're doing on my blog: http://communityzenmaster.com/blogs/lliu/archive/...

By: meznor

meznor — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:48:11 +0000

McLuhan was actually one of my least favourite media analysts to read in school… he gets pretty convoluted at times, and like any good philosopher, contradicts himself without remorse. But he did have some clever aphorisms that force people to think about things in interesting ways

I'm a Cluetrain Manifesto fan… I think any organization that wants to get into social media should read that first. There are too many organizations misusing social media – or calling it social media when it's really one-way communication, or maybe can be classified as multimedia. I think we're still in what Everett Rogers called the "early adopter" stage, where people are just starting to grasp social media, but it's about to hit the majority (nice little explanation of that here: http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_rogers_innov...target=”_blank”>http://So” target=”_blank”>http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_rogers_innov...Sonaturally I think there will be some experimentation and misuse… and lots of conversation, too, which is a good thing. Discussion and discussion about discussions will help shape its mainstream use.

BTW, Go Steelers! Trying to find a good pub with a large screen TV to watch it here in Toronto.

By: meznor

meznor — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:49:59 +0000

Try this link again: http://tinyurl.com/35ndh

By: Michael J. Russell

Michael J. Russell — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:05:41 +0000

Thanks. You've inspired me to do some further reading/research on McLuhan, who was extraordinarily insightful and on-target in his time. (As a Canadian, you knew that, of course.)

Rather, my point was that there's still a fundamental misapprehension in some quarters of what social media's all about. You see this when legacy organizations decide to "do one of those blog things," or when elected officials make risible public statements about Internet "tubes," and the like.

Re TV advertising: Attention is the new ROI. I'll be watching for trends with this year's crop of Superbowl commercials. Of course, being a Pennsylvanian, I'll be watching I'll be watching the game, as well. ;^/

By: meznor

meznor — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:23:44 +0000

McLuhan also believed that as each new technology/medium is adopted, it evolves humankind. Each medium becomes an extension of ourselves. When social media becomes just another extension of ourselves, the discussion surrounding it will cease and we will have been evolved. Until then, I agree with you, Michael, that there will be as many notes as required.

Re: filters… we evolve filters, too. It's part of the process. Does anyone really watch commercials anymore the way we used to? Only Superbowl ads 'cos they're inventive sometimes.

By: Michael J. Russell

Michael J. Russell — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:18:37 +0000

Thanks, Fred. Sounds like a great VC investment opportunity to me.

Likewise, I agree that getting the S/N ratio in line is essential to deriving value from these exchanges. Tools that help find the right conversations will help make usage of (all forms of) social media even more ubiquitous, and thereby of greater valuable. (That might seem like a paradox, but isn’t.)

Emerging semantic approaches may be the key here, I think.

By: fred wilson

fred wilson — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:53:09 +0000

i think you are right, that there can never be enough discussion, but we need tools and filters to sort through the noise to find the signal

By: Michael J. Russell

Michael J. Russell — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:27:25 +0000

Scott, I think you've nailed it. To paraphrase Clay Shirky, the impact of communications doesn't get socially interesting until the underlying technology gets boring …and everybody's got it — i.e., the ubiquity you describe. For now, I think we're still waiting for the novelty of much this stuff to wear off. I, for one, admit I'm enjoying the wait

By: Michael J. Russell

Michael J. Russell — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:24:31 +0000

Ari, thanks. I say "the message is the medium" precisely because social media is – or certainly should be – about ideas rather than the stuff used to convey them. I ask (rhetorically) if that isn't blindingly obvious, but I'm honestly not certain that it is for many people – not because they aren't smart – they are. They're just approaching the question from a different mindset, I think.

Simply put, "the message is the medium" is the reverse of the tail-wagging-the-dog model McLuhan (accurately, I think) described in the 60's. Fortunately, now isn't then, and we're no longer living in the interruption-based, one-to-many communications world of Mad Men. (We sure like watching them on TV, though.)

Re the "One note" idea, I'm tempted to do a follow-up post on what Peter Kim wittily dubbed the "lazysphere" – i.e., otherwise bright, capable folks all talking to one another about the same stuff in the same way. I think that's what probably inspired Hubspot's hilarious "Social Media Marketing Madness" cartoon. http://tr.im/btlb

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:49:38 +0000

Great post Michael! Congrats on implementing Intense Debate btw…