Tag : internet

I can’t remember where I read this, or who wrote it, but I am being stalked by this phrase:

“The Web amplifies the truth about a brand”

For brands, and marketers, this is a great thing if the brand is true. It’s brilliant. But if you’re lying it’s getting trickier. The truth will out.

And this truth machine doesn’t just work on brands. The music industry, movie studios, print and TV companies all know, the awful truth about digital is that it strangles all the cosy inefficiencies out of your business – you know, the ones where your margins used to be – and it’s not easy (and may be impossible) to make up the lost revenue simply by optimising what you used to do for digital platforms. I take no joy in saying that, I’m just saying it’s happening. The Web is a deflationary, flattening monster that’s gonna stamp all over you. The truth will out.

The launch event for Charles Leadbetter’s Cloudculture pamphlet at the ICA last night let loose a rain-shower of thoughts about individuality and ownership (disclosure: I haven’t read it yet).

Charlie’s theme was that we’re moving to a different kind of internet, that its shape would be determined by the “civil war” now raging between old and new media (Murdoch vs Google, Jobs versus the music industry) and between government (security, protection) and citizens (freedom of speech). His gist was that – and I’m paraphrasing wildly now – the outcome would be imprinted in the structure of intellectual property rights that emerges from the fight. The threat is that the battle ensnares the possibilities of creative collaboration, or that cloud capitalists are organising the future landscape to suit corporate and state purposes (I know some, and they are).