Yesterday, I tweeted the following: “When @jbernoff says you better stop thinking of the Social Web as ‘media’ – you better listen!”
This tweet referred to Josh Bernoff (one of Forrester Research’s bigwig-cum-analysts)’s post: “Why Social Media Sucks” on Ad Age Digital Next’s blog.
Forrester research
Josh gives us an overview of his, qualified, views of the various terminologies bandied around by digital marketers so often – most noteworthy the inaccurate and over-hyped use of the phrase: ‘Social Media’ (something that we’ve also pointed out at our Heavy Chef Joburg event on ’Smoke, Mirrors & Social Media’ here and here)
Josh, specifically referring to the baggage that comes along with the word “media”, says:
“Media is something that media companies control, and media is overwhelmingly one-way. The online social world is about as two-way, multi-way, any-way as it can be. Nobody controls it, not even Facebook, which found it can’t even change its own terms of service… and while, as in media, you can advertise in social network sites, that is the least interesting use for them.”
Prefering to define the whole world of people connecting and drawing strength from each other online as the Social Web, Josh in his post also provide’s some clarity on his take on words such as ’social applications’ and ’social networks’.
Love your work Josh!
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