I’ve been batting around this idea, would love to get your thoughts.
Change is in the air. Something is happening in the web, if we take a step back we can see something massively disruptive in scale.
We are in the Posting Economy.
We are starting to see communities where everyone in the room has the ability to post to somewhere. That might be FaceBook, Twitter, BrightKite, IM, FriendFeed, their blog, a mass text message… you get the point. The data layers this is going to create are fascinating.
What is important here is that people are taking part in posting to their own audiences, asking no permission nor seeking immediate reward. This causes an economic shift.
When this happens en mass, we enter the posting economy.
When that happens, sites like DailyMile take off and make a move in buying trends (a site run out of an apartment in San Fransisco by two friends that has helped athletes track almost two million miles of workouts). ColourLovers is another fine example (ahead of it’s time). Sites that five years ago would have died because the users never came. Now, because of user behaviors, niche sites will take off, and more importantly, niches will take off.
An active Posting Economy results in a monetary shift.
With access to all the posts, consumers will shift their spending habits with their new access to fresh data. Imagine all the data from twitter being used on more specific services such as BrightKite or a city having an active datastream? Our current pricing model of fair competition has very little infliction in price (even though the customer base has several monthly events that help or hinder their ability to spend).
Check out stocktwits as an example of this. The information comes from the bottom up.
Sharing is becoming open, even when closed.
The swine flu outbreak was tracked with amazing accuracy by Google. People posted their searches if you will.
When I was traveling in New Zealand this year, Facebook was on the screen of every single computer screen at internet cafes. I asked someone why they spent so much time in a ‘walled garden.’ Their response was surprising to me. They viewed it as sharing it freely. Sure, you can’t search for their content, but their friends could, and why would they want random strangers looking at their pictures and notes?
That is a really good question. I write this post not knowing most that will read it. But for some reason, I don’t think twice about starting the conversation.
The Days of companies profiting ‘because they can get away with it’ are ending.
We have talked about the attention economy, and this is an extension, or pivot from it (and social media for that matter). The posting economy will be the most disruptive thing that has happened to the web in the last five years. I’m pretty sure I will regret that line for some reason, but I see room for amazing growth.
The results are a very democratic entrance of the people. Data (posting) is their weapon to cut up economic norms.
Interesting to think about.
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