The Socialisation of Media

This is the panel discussion thing on social media I did a couple of days ago for the PSFK Good Ideas salon.

It was all good early morning fun [I think I may have been hypercaffeinated] - and there's a party to celebrate being upbeat in 09 to end the series off.

One of the things I got asked was what's going to happen in 2009. Whilst I have no idea, I've never been one to shy away from a little future gazing and I think one of the things we'll see more if is the continued blurring of the modalities of media.

Specifically, I think there is going to be a increase in the socialisation of 'mainstream' media.

I think things like the twitter backchannel that Fallon/Scifi put together for Eureka, and The Hills backchannel that Area/Code did, give an indication of how a previously isolated media consumption experience makes a virtue of its nature as a solidarity good whilst it is happening, rather than later over the metaphorically cooled water.

Newspapers embrace comments and blogging and RSS, opening up their journalists to the discussions that make blogging the essentially social thing it is.

Posters seek content from people, leveraging scale and vanity to avoid being ignored.

In a time when budgets for media are inevitably going to be cut [despire the long standing argument that it pays to invest during a recession] old media will have to embrace the social content ecosystem that surrounds it.