Tag: clay shirky

Counting on Clay Shirky

If Clay Shirky is right about Here Comes Everybody, then this social media counter is simply the latest proof.

Two astonishing things:

  1. Texting (SMS) is far more popular than searching Google (communication beats search)
  2. This is only the beginning — let’s see these counters in another 5 or 10 years

The conclusion? Mass media is shrinking rapidly at the hands of participatory media. It’s not absolute (one kills the other), but it is a complete reshuffling of the deck.

Are you connecting in your public media practice, or are you broadcasting?

http://www.personalizemedia.com/media/socmedcounter.swf

How 1998 isn't like 2008

I’m a week late blogging it, but I wanted to make sure I highlighted the interview with Clay Shirky on WNYC’s On the Media right at the end of February. Plus I wanted to plug his book, which I’m ordering right now.

One of the points made in the interview is that just 10 years separates this new mode of Internet activism and participation from the old model that didn’t allow people to easily find one another and co-create social action and original media around shared values and interests.

In a world like this — where the audience (or community) is in control as much as the old gatekeepers (perhaps in even more control) — what is the role for public service media?