Cluetrain alert
the cluetrain manifesto Is an aging book and website detailing how the Internet is allowing the consumers to gain a very powerful and credibible voice in the Marketing Discussion.
It contends that the consumers are quickly becoming deaf to the typical engineered propaganda that corporations tend to spew out in their attempt to impress customers .
This book was written well before the Blogging revolution, but it is interesting how relevant it is to the CBS situation.
Investors business daily Is running an interesting article regarding the power of Bloggers, and the advantages and disadvatages that they have over traditional media. CBS is demonstrating the cost of ignoring the cluetrain.
Some choice points from "The Cluetrain Manifesto ":
"There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.""Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity."
"Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them."
If you haven't heard of the "Cluetrain manifesto" Check out their website, they have 93 other points like this, and slowly companies in every industry are going to learn that they are dead on.
UPDATE: The guys at Powerline blog seem to have a firm grasp on what is happening. People have information. People now have the power to share their information. The mainstream media needs to adapt fast. Or someone is going to innovate a replacement for them. It seems that CBS has been 3 days behind since this broke.. People notice, People talk, People laugh.
An interesting observation. Analagous to the "efficient market theory" in investing. When a "few" knew the information, one had to deal with the few to come out ahead. After several layers of "transparency" were added to the financial information, it became extremely difficult to be one of the "few". It still worked in small, hard to understand businesses, but the large well known firms were too well covered. The "news" seems to have entered a phase that is, if not a commodity, pretty close and, therefore, is not able to be controlled by an oligarchy. Markets change, careers die.