Of Cities, Tribes, Villages and Databases

Spring 2012

In retrospect perhaps the one thing we have missed in all this excitement about the future of media being social is the simple fact that Social Networks are arguably the least sophisticated and maybe even the most primitive of the communications models.

They may be agile. But these networks are not efficient when it comes to delivering effective reach and measurable response. More a place for sharing Chinese whispers than an effective mass media channel.

Nor is the challenge of making these social networks efficient messaging and communications platforms a new one. For what is the history of architecture if not the story of how civilisations have tried to solve the inefficiencies of the social network through aggregation of communities of interest in an organised time and space?

And what is a city if not the ultimate expression of how societies resolve the challenge of aggregating this myriad of fragmented social networks into a more efficient and effective economic model?

Understand this and you will see that these social network databases are a virtual expression of a pre-existing solution (i.e. the Modern 20th Century Multicultural Metropolis). The problem being of course that, while everyone living in a city shares the same time and space, the same cannot be said for these virtual communities. These time shifted databased enabled experiences under glass.

This observation brings into the question the efficacy of aggregation within the virtual context. i.e. the value of an aggregated shared virtual time and space =! the value an aggregated share physical time and space.

I would also argue that if you stand back and observe all this aggregated shared virtual social activity it becomes self evident that this new generation of media is in reality little more than the media equivalent of a primitive hunter-gather economy. Rather than passively receiving the collective signal of the industrial economy (e.g. Radio or TV) this social generation actively hunt out the message and then selectively share its contents with others in their tribe (of interest). Less a new media revolution and more a global feasting on the rotting carcass of the mass media of the 20th Century. Hence the emergence online of Media Tribalism and the Global Village.

Extend this metaphor to the next level of activity then the growing practise of social curation and aggregation is perhaps best understood as the media equivalent of the feudal agrarian economy.

Of course Google takes this harvesting of the curation and aggregation activity to industrial levels. Which of probably explains why it has easily the most efficient networked media monetisation model on the network. But even this falls well short of the comparative efficiency of Radio and TV back in the days when they were at the height of their commercial success.

Indeed the network is so inefficient that the only proven method of monetising continues to be aggregation of content generated at marginal or no cost (i.e. Repurposing content from other media channels or supply side Freemium).

Which inevitably leads us to the question what if, rather than being the future of media social, or more accurately the Internet, is in reality a regression that is taking us towards media's past?

Agile yes, but far too primitive (i.e. inefficient and ineffective) to support the complexity of a post industrial society.

Television and Radio are industrial age media. They have proven to be very efficient and effective media channels for the best part of century. They, along with Newspapers and Magazines, are a cornerstone of mass market consumerist economics. They all represent signals in search of noise.

The Internet on the other hand is all noise in search of a signal. This is why it is such an inefficient mass media channel. The question is can a mass market consumerist economy survive in a world of hunter gatherer media?

The answer is probably not. So the next question is will the market choose agility over efficiency? Will it choose to exchange the mass for micro or even nano? I guess we'll have to wait and see but the very fact the question has to be asked is in of itself ironic. After all...

"In the age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the holy ghost" - Aldous Huxley

Till next time...