Tutorial: New Media Marketing for Old Media Marketers. Part 3.2

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Part 3.2 Youtube

Here’s a thought that might help you understand the paradigm shift from the old internet to Web 2.0:

‘The adoption of Web 2.0 is like moving from a totalitarian Internet to a democratic Internet.’

Let’s break this down:

The old internet was made up of sites that put information on that they thought was relevant without readers’ input. This also meant that they could exclude any information which was contrary to their efforts. Hence you have the scenario where websites are dictating to you, much like the way Hitler used wave his finger when addressing a crowd. Web 2.0 sites, on the other hand, leave it to the users of the site to create the content, so in fact the content is by the people for the people and there is no control over the direction the content will follow, it seems to ebb and flow with the voice of the community. The people also determine what is popular and what isn’t by different forms of what is basically voting, although this simple concept takes on a few different names in the Web 2.0 space (depending on what voting service is used) such as: Rating, Digging, Stumbling, bookmarking, tagging and yes even voting sometimes.

Youtube is a Web 2.0 site and is a great example of content created by the people for the people. But you may be thinking: ‘Well all I do is watch videos on Youtube so how is that Web 2.0?’ The answer is simple really, if you sign up (for free of course) with Youtube, you will see a whole lot more functionality which is the true power of the service. So firstly videos are uploaded by regular people like you and me (we call them users) which is very Web 2.0. You can also rate a video which will contribute to its popularity and is nice and democratic, you can email a video to a friend, post it on Facebook or even put it on (embed is the technical term) your blog or website all of which falls under the social networking side of Web 2.0. Make sense? I hope so!

Coming up in Part 3.3, we’ll either be discussing blogs or podcasts depending on my mood at the time of writing it.

Who am I listening to? Part 2: Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson: For Immediate Release

For Immediate Release is a podcast presented by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson and is described as being at the intersection of PR / communications and the online world. I sometimes find this description a bit limiting as there is certainly a lot more discussion than online PR and communications as they delve into all sorts of (relative) topics and especially things within this environment that I may not have thought of before. I usually get turned off by PR blogs / casts as it’s not really my field of interest as but this is one of my favourite podcasts, it can’t be ‘too Pr’ can it?

I would also say that FIR (as it is commonly referred to) is a leader in podcasting in terms of listeners and innovation. It sounds to me like they have the largest listenership in the We 2.0 / marketing-esque podcast environment but what really sets them apart is how they involve their audience. It’s the only podcast I listen to where the listeners are able to leave voice comments about a topic which are subsequently played during the following episodes.

They also have a very ingenious (possibly lazy) system by which the readers can use a Wiki to write up the show notes for each podcast themselves. Lazy or not, this kind of interactivity around their podcasts certainly answers some of those critics with too much time on their hands that question whether a podcast is a true Web 2.0 application because of it’s supposed lack of opportunities to interact with the audience.

If like me, you listen to marketing podcasts to stay up with the latest trends, FIR is definitely one to add to the ol’ subscription list.

As a side note, I have also bought Shel Holtz’s book ‘Corporate Conversations’ which I am looking forward to reading but I unfortunately picked up my copy of Spud (a South African comedy) first and now cannot put it down! I’ll definitely get around to reading it though Shel!