A line earlier this year via Horse/Pig/Cow by sean coon (who I don’t know) has stuck with me for a long time:
[as in we should] “2.0 the hell out of government” which I think is a fantastic sentiment (whatever it means)
But I think we can go further. We should be 2.0’ng the hell out of almost everything. I know we’re just at the start of what we can achieve with this odd semantic grab-bag of technologies and social trends we call “2.0” or “social media”. But it’s still hard to explain to outsiders. Especially in the corporate world. How do we “2.0 the hell out of corporations”?
for one, the world social in social media has to go. Like it or not, when talking to the business community, that word just does not bring up the right associations.
and web2.0 as well, most outside the echochamber still have no idea what it means and those inside, even to the extent they agree on a deffinition, are really growing long sick of it. A dated buzzword already, long associated with look-alike consumers with no apparent monetizability (though perhaps the sale of the posterchild “no-revenue-model” YouTube for billions may be forcing some to rethink)
Having spent much of this week hammering out a brand articulation for Firestoker (my new startup) we’ve become acutely aware of the lexicographical gaps that underlie the very medium we are attempting to implement.
I could definitely get behind 2.0ing a lot of stuff, including the government and corporations. I think you illustrated though the problem with buzzwords, is that they become only that, losing whatever original meaning they once had. As far as 2.0ing the language of social media, I think one has to respect certain normative terminology, as the alternative seems to be proposing some sort of “newspeak”, with all the Orwellian pitfalls you can conjure up. Making ideas “sexy” is a more involved process.. good marketing is really the tool we need here, more than just a fancy product name.
I could definitely get behind 2.0ing a lot of stuff, including the government and corporations. I think you illustrated though the problem with buzzwords, is that they become only that, losing whatever original meaning they once had. As far as 2.0ing the language of social media, I think one has to respect certain normative terminology, as the alternative seems to be proposing some sort of “newspeak”, with all the Orwellian pitfalls you can conjure up. Making ideas “sexy” is a more involved process.. good marketing is really the tool we need here, more than just a fancy product name.
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