Mainstream Media vs Social Media

This follows up on a discussion I've been having with colleagues.

It’s an age-old story … the establishment condescending, critical and busy trying to tear down the young intruders trying to change the old guard. The corporate big guys trying to clear the playing field of anything that gets in the way of their darling little device that builds shareholder value. At that moment in time, they cannot imagine that there is some other value beyond financial capital. But, times are changing. People are worn out from the old way of making money … even the shareholders. We want to create value in a more meaningful way.

OpenSource does not mean no proprietary applications – it means sharing code source so that people can play with it and develop their own applications. What will Microsoft do when people get tired of the struggle and have the power and ease to chose something else?

What’s the impact of this? We’re watching this happen now. We are witnesses to an evolutionary shift in how people, business and brands engage in creating a future of value on many levels.

Some day, Wikipedia will be the mainstream, and perhaps Encyclopedia Britannica might even still exist, standing dusty on the shelves in the old archives building that people will visit to smell the books.