Some ideas and references for tomorrow’s informal MixedRealities discussion about the role social media micro-ventures (virtual communities) can play in the economy.
I’d like to start with some broad macro-considerations. One inspiring thinker is professor Immanuel Wallerstein, who not only talks about the decline of the dominant position of the US, but also about the tendency of profit margins to go down.
Companies try to counter this moving production from core zones to other parts of the world-system, but eventually start engaging in financial speculation in order to achieve really high returns – which would explain the ponzi-scheme tendencies of our societies.
Wallerstein predicts that after a period of high chaotic turbulence, which can last for 20-50 years, the new system which will emerge will not be the capitalist system we know today:
This will not be a capitalist system but it may be far worse (even more polarizing and hierarchical) or much better (relatively democratic and relatively egalitarian) than such a system. The choice of a new system is the major worldwide political struggle of our times.
One could imagine that the open source movement, the collaboration made possible by social media and virtual worlds, are highly relevant for this new system.
The post Three articles that inspire new media thinking (Six Parcels of Separation) mentions the Generation M Manifesto (Harvard Business Publishing). What do the “M”s in Generation M stand for?
The first is for a movement, so the article explains. It’s a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth “M”s.
It seems the Generation M is deeply interested in authentic communities and in small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.
What about the erosion of profit margins and the restructuring of capitalism? There is a lot of stuff out there about these subjects. The network theoretician Manuel Castells for instance said years ago already, in this interview in NRC Handelsblad(Dutch language):
Networks are for this time what factories were for the Industrial Revolution. We see now the reversed process: the decentralization and disintegration of big vertical organizations into very flexible networks of small, dispersed units: individuals, companies and small companies who can change easily and can adapt well to changing circumstances. Such a network can often function much more efficiently than a big company.
Here is yet another article about the decreasing rates of return on assets in the US and the shift of wealth:
The Increased Competitiveness of the US economy (Marginal Revolution)
But are the new big internet companies not restoring those rates of return? There is some despair about the profitibility of internet companies. For a recent discussion:
The Internet is Alive and Well (As An Investment) (A VC)
versus
The Internet is Dead (As An Investment) (The Wall Street Journal).
Next I would like to discuss social media, media companies, and virtual communities.
I found this interesting post about issues of scale in social media: Social Media: Are You in Danger of Being Scalejacked? (AdvertisingAge).
Maybe the gaming industry can offer some insights and solutions regarding the monetization of media and communities:
Flash Love Letter (Lost Garden)
In order to upset those who think that mass-media and print media are about to die, there is the story of for instance The Economist, a “weekly newspaper” which is actually doing very well, in sharp contrast with other magazines:
The Newsweekly’s Last Stand (The Atlantic)
Reinventing BusinessWeek (BuzzMachine)
I think the example of The Economist is interesting, even for (virtual) communities.I would like to compare The Economist with a classical virtual community (even though not in a 3D-world): the Well. I found an interesting post analyzing the Well:
Nine principles for making virtual communities work (Wired)
Maybe we can get to some conclusions: can one run virtual communities as financially self-sustaining ventures? Is it desirable to try? If not, why not? And if yes, what are concrete ways to make those communities financially sustainable?
What does all this mean for society? Will more and more people try to make a living in social media micro-ventures? Will they just be able to survive, creating a kind of periphery in a global system, while others will earn decent incomes working for big corporations? Or will they prosper?
I’d love to discuss those issues, Tuesday July 21, at 1 pm SLT/PST (10 PM CET). Our Metaplace hangout is http://www.metaplace.com/mixedrealities.
You can also join the MixedRealities Facebook group and the MixedRealities group in Second Life, I use those groups to keep people informed about activities such as the bi-weekly meetings, the Connectivism course or other events.
For those of you who want to enter directly in Metaplace/MixedRealities (you might want to select the full screen option in order to navigate around more easily):
Roland Legrand