Pop goes that bubble, but it is not social media

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There is a toing-and-froong going on over at Mashable today about metrics.

This is a familiar story now.  Some people, Drama 2.0 being one, equate ROI with immediate numbers.  Get me page numbers, etc.  Others, are looking for an amplification factor or an qualitative outcome.

In his rebuttal, Drama 2.0, uses the example of having a beach front property in St Kitts.  If you try to sell a beach front property without being able to point to it, people will call you as an imposter.

Well as I know St Kitts (anyone want to move there?), I wouldn’t bother with the owning the beach front property.  I would just connect you up with people in St Kitts.

I don’t have to set up an office and get people to list their properties publicly and make a general display of themselves.  I would just patch you in to the St Kitts community.  They’ll tell you what’s for sale, show you the properties discreetly, tell you the rules about residency, and how long the paperwork will take, and so on.  They’ll also help you decide whether you will enjoy living there and help you build relationships so that living there is enjoyable.

This is why “bolting” on SM in a manipulative way could be a large mistake.  You build up your big fancy website?  What is the “barrier to entry” for anyone like me from using your website to enhance my network?

I can use yours because it is based on “things”.  You can’t use mine, because mine is based on people.  And god help me if my friends found out I took money to introduce you to them.  That’s called pimping last time I looked.  I do that once, just once, and I am over, so-over!

The game has changed folks.  You didn’t really have exclusive access to a property in St Kitts that we all want desperately.  That was just an illusion (who wants to live on island without friends anyway?).

The illusion has been blown out of the water.

What can we do?

So what use are negative messages?  None in my opinion.  I don’t help you be telling you what you can’t do.  So what can we do?

a) I can organize a site for people in St Kitts (their orphanage needs some help BTW)

b) I can think hard what value they will get (its a small place - they might get more value from connections off the island than inside it)

c) I can think about why they might be bothered with strangers.

If I can’t phrase what I am doing in human terms, all that IT is going to be down the plug, anyway.  The opportunity of social media is saving costs, but not for greater manipulation.  The opportunity is for saving costs of something that used to be really, really, really expensive : building relationships.

Social media allows you to move from a transactional, easy to copy but capital intensive business based on owning and protecting the ownership of expensive things

- to -

a relationship-based business where some financial capital is replaced with reputational capital.

And you don’t have a choice.  Because if you don’t move, other people will do it.  And you will be left holding the parcel - like that house you paid too much for (sorry! ! have other disasters in my life).

Social media is bursting the bubble of overpriced assets and pretentious claims to exclusivity.

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June 27, 2008 | Filed Under Jo Jordan 

Comments

2 Responses to “Pop goes that bubble, but it is not social media”

  1. Drama 2.0 on June 27th, 2008 9:26 am

    Apparently you’re a bit confused. I stated:

    “You have essentially stated, ‘I can save you money but you won’t be able to measure it.’

    You’ll certainly understand my skepticism. I’d expect you to be equally skeptical if I tell you that I own a 20,000 square foot beachfront estate in St. Kitts but for some reason can’t show it to you.”

    I wasn’t talking about selling or buying property in St. Kitts. I was merely stating that if somebody tells me they can save me money but can’t show me how, I’d naturally be as skeptical I would be if a person telling me about their massive beachfront estate isn’t able to give me a tour of it.

    Sorry you had to write an entire blog post about a point I didn’t make. Maybe next time.

    By the way, your homepage is really annoying. I don’t even know you yet the first thing you want from me is my email, name, country, city, gender and URL? Brilliant!

  2. Jo Jordan on June 27th, 2008 11:31 am

    Good of you to get back to me so fast.

    I think this is where we are talking at cross purposes. The question is to save money at what?

    Let me give you an example someone gave at a Microsoft bash at the Science Museum last night.

    There was a time when you generated your own electricity - we were surrounded with the early attempts. Now we connect ourselves to the grid. Bits of our business become unnecessary yet we can do more.

    The conversation we are having suggests we should make a cheaper generator when all we have to do is plug in. Of course, you have the expense of connecting up to the mains, but that is no longer optional, is it? Once you have done it, you have a product that is much cheaper IN THE HANDS OF THE CUSTOMER.

    I’ll mention the front page to the webmaster. Good feedback.

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