Sunday, March 21, 2010

Enough already.


As the weather, at least temporarily turns balmy here in New York, it's only a matter of time before kids around the city start selling lemonade for only $6 or $7 a cup. Their signs usually says something like "Lemonade. 50 cents a cup. Delicious."

Now, of course, that kind of "messaging" is obsolete. Children will spread news of their lemonade stands via Digg and 4 Square. They will tweet and use other social networking sites to begin a conversation about their lemonade.

Thanks to these earth-shaking tools, the little lemonade sellers will out-pace Bill Gates. Their stands will net them billions of dollars. Before long they will crowd-source other lemonade stands and the wisdom of crowds will send the money rolling in like fat people at a cruise ship buffet.

Isn't life grand!

My point is simple, though two-fold. 1) People have not changed more in the last 10 years than they have in the previous 20,000. If you have something to sell, an ad that announces it is still relevant. The efficacy of that communication will not be superseded by a purported conversation. 2) Anyone who proclaims a brave new world or a new world order or the death of any particular media is a history-hating hypocrite.

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