As we’ve seen over the length of this year, the digitization of media has empowered individuals to communicate with the world. As sources of information have increased, a struggle for relevance and credibility has ensued with many venerable institutions falling victim to upstarts, usurpers, and the rest of the crowd who are now able to reach a mass audience cheaply and easily.

In this network of identity and reputation, old standards of operation are becoming obsolete. The institution of journalism, perhaps justly proud of its self-styled public watchdog role, nonetheless has long observed various rules of conduct that are not strictly in the public interest. The era of the mainstream media being able to conspire to smother a story is rapidly drawing to a close as digital sources of information gain credibility.

A crucial source of that new-found credibility is the increasing occurrence of peer groups and social networks sharing information with each other digitally. Through the attribution of identity, the distribution of information through social networks and other referral mechanisms gains a specific, and personal, context. In this system, users are both publishers and brokers of information, and the ideas, updates or stories that are being shared can pass freely throughout their network with their imprint.

In many ways, this is nothing new. Individuals have always shared information with each other, and people’s identities have certainly been bound up with the sort of information they may have had to share. Personal relationships have meant a lot in getting a message distributed, and they will become ever more important now as the scope of possible relationships increases. The number of people who can influence a large crowd is no longer limited to a relatively tiny percentage of journalists and public figures. Institutions attempting to navigate the social waters will have to bear this in mind when charting their course.

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Filed under: Digitization, Identity
Posted by: Richard
On: Wednesday, July 15th

I’ve been blogging about the internet for a while, and using it for far longer. Born in a region that lies at the heart of web innovation, I was exposed to the network early on in my life and that no doubt has influenced my outlook on this process of digitization that I see sweeping the globe. Obviously I am not the only one who has observed this, and I have been strongly influenced by people like William Gibson, Donna Haraway, Manuel Castells, Richard Stallman, danah boyd, Shigeru Miyamoto and Howard Rheingold, among many others.

Nevertheless, as a longtime internet user, I believe that there are more signs now than ever before that the increasing adoption of the internet as a crucial tool in the everyday lives of Americans has reached a tipping point. Yes, Americans have been on the net for well over a decade,  but I would argue that users have demonstrated a new depth of participation with the web this year. Just since the beginning of 2009 we have seen an audience of millions watching online video streams of the Obama inauguration, a massive institutionalization of so-called ‘citizen journalism’ during the #IranElection, and a sudden demonstration of how the influence of and affinity for a cultural icon like Michael Jackson can translate into a quantifiable asset.

The key to this growth, and the value proposition that it contains, are connected to the complimentary nature of the emergent network identity that now cuts across many demographics. While there was a time when nobody on the internet knew you were a dog, now identity is increasingly associated with the web experience. Because the web is becoming a part of American’s everyday lives, users will expect to be able to interact with the brands, products and companies that impact their lives on it, and when they are unhappy with that experience they will be able to make their displeasure known to the members of their social network.

Mine was an early introduction to the virtual lifestyle of the internet, but the generation being born today is more likely to have a network identity from the cradle to the grave. In this new environment, the challenges and opportunities now facing industry are to be able to satisfy that customer expectation for interaction while benefiting from the increased intelligence on, and exposure to, those customers through the network.

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Filed under: Digitization, Identity
Posted by: Richard
On: Wednesday, July 8th