The New Age of Discovery
Ever wonder what distributed social networking pathways look like in the networked world? It makes much more sense when you break it down to the discovery process and think about how it works. Here is one example:
I read a great post on a blog I trust: Church of the Customer Blog
The post sparks a visit to a viral site: ConverseGallery.com
the site leads to watching a cool video: Secret
The video is made by an interesting young director: Adria Petty
The director used equally cool music: The Like
Which I just blogged, and you just read and can now comment on and share.
I've used tell-a-friend on MySpace and on the Converse Gallery site to send a couple messages about what I found. The Like's music is streaming in the background as I write this, and I'm downloading two tracks. I'll probably check out Adria's VW videos later.
Where does it go from here?
Quality plays an important role in the process. At any point in the journey, if the quality of the information, content or experience is sub-par, the discovery weakens or stops. My propensity to spread messages also significantly decreases.
In the Church of the Customer Blog, they compare recent viral efforts made by Chevy and Converse and suggest that "the congregation is smarter than the carny. Appeal to the evangelists."
Limiting efforts to selected groups is one way to ensure quality, but I think there is room for both mass and targeted efforts, depending on the marketing objectives. Can't Chuck Taylor and a Subservient Chicken co-exist in the networked word? I think so.
Also worth noting: Adria Petty is Tom's daughter, and The Like have equally interesting family trees: Z's father being former Geffen A&R man/record producer Tony Berg, Charlotte's father as producer Mitchell Froom and Tennessee's father Pete Thomas, longtime drummer for Elvis Costello. It should come as no surprise that media people and artists get it.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
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