Everyone Is a Publisher, Everyone Is a Broadcaster

Chapter 4 in Citizen Marketers is all about the democratizing self expression on the internet. Different tools have been created to allow this expression such as blogs, podcasts, RSS Feeds, and YouTube.

While the printing press has revolutionized the way information is written down, the internet has began to revolutionize the way messages are transferred. In the early 1990's blogs became accessible to online subscribers. Nowadays, they are even easier to use and more widely known about. Companies that use them are "creating real-time customer feedback system." Every blogger is a publisher.

Also, podcasts are emerging on the web 2.0 field. They are "digital files delivered automatically to subscribers as feeds." Many people are enjoying creating podcasts because the FCC can not regulate any of the content.

As we have discussed in class, RSS Feeds makes subscribing to things on the web extremely easy.
1. Feeds do not consume energy.
2. Feeds are free.
3. Feeds are almost instantaneous.
4. Feed subscribers are a tangible asset.

Finally the authors discuss the influential YouTube. There are six lessons about the site that everyone needs to know.
1. "YouTube was designed and built with community as its founding principle."
2. "YouTube made sharing content ridiculously easy."
3. "YouTube ws loaded with statistics."
4. "YouTube encouraged its users to personalize their public profile pages."
5. "YouTube's user interface was restrained and simple."
6. YouTube's search functionality...consistently bested Google Video's functionality."

At the end of the chapter, the author's describe challenges to these social network sites. Myspace for example has become extremely popular with our generation. However will it remain popular for the generations below us? What does it take to have such a site be on the top? It will be interesting to see how long such sites will stick around until the new wave of trends hit.