Very interesting piece on how news is spread – the power of social distribution
Link through smartmobs, through god-knows-where-else – talk of social distribution!
From the article in The Feature – Traditionally, news was delivered in an organized fashion. There were newspapers delivered every day, TV and radio news that came on at scheduled times. If something was especially important, a TV or radio station might cut in with “breaking news” or a newspaper (in extraordinary circumstances) might print an “Extra” edition. The Internet and mobile phones have helped to change this. News travels in an instant, and fewer and fewer people wait for the headlines in tomorrow’s paper about what happened yesterday.
Mike Masnick in the article gives the example of how news of the death of Ducth singer Andre Hazes spread rapidly through SMS. Conventional news sources such as newpapers and television cnanot even hope to keep pace with such news agents – considering both the speed at which news gets disseminated and the fact that here the audience themselves are the carriers of news – end readers/listeners/watchers are no longer just passive recipients of news, but active distributors of news, often with additional thoughts or commentary.
This makes me wonder about how advertisers can use the power of the ‘active audience’ to create word of mouth (thumb?) publicity for their product / event / whatever…
Just finished reading The Tipping Point – how can mobile technology be used to create a revolution in conventional marketing? Why has mobile marketing not yet taken off in India in a big way?