Whose Space? Critical Thinking About Online Communities
In an Adbusters magazine article called "my space" (pun intended) Eric Rumble quotes Sherry Turkle, director of MIT's Technology and Self program and author of Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
"Our society tends toward a breathless techno-enthusiasm...The self that grows up with multitasking and rapid response measures success by calls made, emails answered, messages responded to."
Rumble asks if we are now focussing on "quantity over quality" and points out that the communication patterns we are increasingly getting used to online are oddly reminiscent of the way that advertisers target audiences.
"In essence, networking netizens are getting better and better at producing what amounts to 30-second spots about our states of mind, our ambitions, our whereabouts, our passions and obsessions."
He asks "is there a purpose to this new breed of online social network beyond data mining its membership?" (If you're not familiar with the term "data mining", here's a definition: Data mining is searching large volumes of data looking for patterns that accurately predict behavior in customers and prospects.)
I think there's no doubt that member registration, tracking and data mining is a primary motive for sponsoring companies. But that's not new. Similar tactics have been used by businesses for decades in mail order, lotteries and other forms of promotion.
These days, companies gather very targeted information about network members and use that information to attract advertising revenue, among other things. Again, this concept is nothing new. Print magazines have always based their advertising fee structure on number of subscribers.
As one online network specializing in employee recruitment states: "The breadth of our community allows us to create customized recruitment, marketing and advertising campaigns for companies to effectively reach their target audience."
Perhaps what is different is the scale and specificity with which this can be done on the web.
What do you think?
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