stealing ideas

1,000 is the new 1,000,000 (preface)

Preface to the preface: Several months ago I read Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans post and loved the concept.  I’ve also taken the time recently to actually read The Long Tail, as opposed to reading about it and what everyone else has to say about it for the last 3-4 years.  So it’s been that which I’ve most recently immersed myself in which lead me to the idea of this multi-part post focused on how large media companies should think about relatively small and nascent technologies like Twitter/Seesmic/FriendFeed/Apps/etc.

Background:For a large media company the name of the game has always been massive distribution + original content =  massive audience.  And massive audience = ad revenue.  But when the computer, the Internet, Moore’s Law and affordable high-speed connections all contributed and combined to form the perfect networking storm, the 1 + 1 = 2 equation got screwed with.  Only most media companies today are still ignoring it.  Or ignorant to it.

When all of the stuff above jumbled together and formed what we have today, an always-on, hyper-connected social landscape the new currency that matters most is that of the social kind.  Social currency is that stuff that gets you noticed (in a good way) and draws people to you.  It’s the joke at the party, it’s the tidbit of information that everyone nods at and says, “interesting…”, it’s the mundane, everyday, tiny interactions that can add up to one massive bank roll.  And media companies are nearly bankrupt.

Why?  Because they’re focus is still on the millions, not the thousand.  Today, even more so tomorrow, it’s the thousand that matter.

In the following days or weeks I’m going to focus on re-learning the following three areas which media companies need to more fully understand in order to make it in the social economy:

content, connections, conscience

Note: Please, feel free to contribute.  By no means is this meant to be a Brittanical essay, chime in, call me out, change my assumptions… it’s an open forum on a focused issue.  Treat it as such.