13 Feb 2009
Mutability – Social Media’s true meaning?
I’m slightly sorry to be adding to the tsunami of comments and articles concerning Twitter’s onward march, but I cannot contain myself, so great is my excitement about what’s going on out there.
An article by David Pogue (@pogue) in the New York Times this week headlined “Twitter? It’s What You Make It” tells us that a large number of the features that define Twitter have been created by its users. ‘Tweeps’ (don’t know
about you but I’m starting to find the cute’n’cuddly Twitter language rather cringe-making) invented RT (re-tweet), they invented the #hashtag to flag search terms and they even invented the term ‘tweets’. So Twitter really IS what the user ‘community’ have made it, and will continue to evolve and mutate according to some pretty Darwinian principles (as supported by 26% of US citizens).
But what really got me going this week was the conjunction of Pogue’s insight with a brilliant post by Tiphereth Gloria (@tiphereth) about the AMC TV show Mad Men (a drama set in the advertising agency heyday of ‘60’s Madison Avenue). I had seen some coverage of Mad Men’s promotion via Twitter, but what Tiphereth has uncovered is much more intereresting. It seems that what the marketing community thought was clever ‘social media optimisation’ was in fact nothing more 
or less than fans of the show Doing it for Themselves. So what was AMC’s reaction? They contacted Twitter and had the accounts closed down. A traditional brand-owner’s natural reaction I guess. But pretty soon they realised the error of this course of action, and retracted. Read the full and fascinating story here.
What’s going on here: what do these events tell us? It seems obvious to me - more obvious than ever - that the ground between ‘corporation’ and ‘consumer’ is undergoing a profound shift. Not all businesses will be revolutionised by these changes, but a significant number will, and many new companies are already prospering within the new paradigm. All in all, I have a fluttery excited feeling in the pit of my stomach, and a sense of “holy cow, it’s really happening’.
What a time it is to be working in a communications business. Lucky us!
