Appreciating Social Media Noise as Idea Incubation
Everybody knows the speed of idea transmission on ActiveRain. Someone pops in with an article or comment that incites controversy, and the whole community is on top of it. This "incubation" of ideas, fully detailed discussions leading to various conclusions within hours, is real time micro-media. More significant ideas are filtered upward until they become "news", but most conversations stay under the radar as they should, otherwise there's too much noise.
Social networking noise has been a double edged sword for Active Rain. Idea incubation and conversation are the hallmark of its close knit community, but the noise of that conversation detracts "outsiders", for example, consumers from participation. I think Active Rain recognized this very early on with Localism, and is now on the right track towards "segregating" conversations most simply as B2B and B2C (Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer) with Active Rain and Localism, respectively... and more importantly, creating ways to maintain the same sense of passionate participation with vehicles like Reblog and Localism Land Rush.
At Media Transparent, I review the social media chronology of an act that happened today - an entrepreneur simply solicited for venture money by Twitter, and it unleashed a flurry of responses and interpretations. A 140 word experiment that spawned a mini-movement, at least until tomorrow.
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