Customer Forums – Web 1.1
June 14, 2007 by Brooke Kyle, Marketing in Marketing
According to Wikipedia.org, O’Reilly Media coined the phrase Web 2.0 sometime in 2004. The term has since become ubiquitous, but it’s difficult to pin down when Web 2.0 — the focus of the Internet community on user-generated content — actually began.
When social-networking sites like MySpace began making news and gaining popularity of course I had to take a look. What I found was largely underwhelming. Not to disparage the creators of MySpace — that community is a force of nature, and something to be respected and admired by all Internet entrepreneurs — it just didn’t seem like a completely new concept.
After all, forums are comprised of users who generate their own content, upload photos to their profiles and create online communities, usually based on a particular interest or hobby. These are communities nonetheless. Who knew sites like Web Hosting Talk and our own humble customer forums would be the unacknowledged godfathers to an entire movement called Web 2.0?
Hopefully the popularity of forums won’t diminish like other user-generated content formulas. I’ve always felt the advantage forums have over other types of communities is their ability to foster dialogue in an arena overcrowded with monologues. And yes I am aware of the irony of using a blog to make that statement.
It’s my belief that both mediums of communication are essential to building relationships with our customers. In fact, I’d like to think that we add value that even goes beyond exchanging credit card numbers for dedicated servers. Blogs provide an opportunity to communicate a concept, idea or opinion to its fullest, while communication in our forums is mostly reactive versus informative.
So until next time … I’ll see you on the forums!
- Brooke
June 16th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Brooke said:
“Not to disparage the creators of MySpace — that community is a force of nature, and something to be respected and admired by all Internet entrepreneurs — it just didn’t seem like a completely new concept. ”
Not nature –MySpace is part of a culture that is only truly understood by the Millennians (13-25) and those who created them, mostly GenX parents (35-49) and perhaps what is left of The Great Generation (79+) which had all of this “social networking” in “physical (not cyber) space” back when most of America’s population was still organized into pre-industrial towns, without TV to keep them inside at night. While the rest of the population understands MySpace as a piece of technology associated with the Internet, it has real trouble “getting it” since it represents a completely alien way of thinking to them. GenY (25-35) in particular has a really rough time because they are more peers of the Millennians than parents and the age difference between a Millenian and a GenYer is not significant enough to explain such a massively different culture. Take heart, the people in the 50s thought the same way about the people of the 60s, and the people of the 70s still haven’t gotten over how alien the people of the 80s are (though 80s people grew more accepting of the “disco generation” as it aged). But this time, instead of the 60s sexual revolution or the transition from “me generation” thinking to the 80s “us generation”, we’re seeing a transition to what has become known as “social networking” where everyday people look at their celebrities as “peers with more hits” rather than divinely created (or Hollywood produced) idols –just like the people of the 20s (and earlier) did. What’s more is that because of the SIZE of the Millennian demographic that practices social networking, massive psychological reconditioning to the “social networking way” is going to be needed for everyone other than the Baby Boomers who have a large enough base to withstand even this second great cultural “attack”. Most of (the tiny) GenX is already active on MySpace and will be fine because it’s not that far a cry from “us generation” thinking to “social networking” (the differences can be chalked up to the energy of youth), but the poor GenY folks just don’t understand what they see as a galactic waste of time/energy and are really going to be lost in a few years as these principals begin to grow economic teeth unless they do as David Bowie (70s) and Tears For Fears (80s) recommend and “Change”.