Cysumers
A race is on between the increasingly numerous online persona of consumers and those technologies that seek to reassemble the electronically fragmented "humpty dumpty" into some semblance of the old-fashioned holistic consumer.
Captains of commerce and capital have torn loyalties in this race.
Technologies that enable consumers to access cyberspace in multiple and somewhat anonymous ways are perceived as empowering by the users. They lead to loyal users and, more importantly, motivate the users to create all manners of content -- made available at no or low cost to the technology platforms that support varied online persona.
On the other hand, conventional marketing wisdom demands the integration of these multiple online persona and to reach out to the "real person" behind them, to sell a variety of goods and services to him or her.
In most cases, the data-mined and cybernetically-assembled consumer -- the cysumer -- is not aware of being in the trained cross-hairs of target marketers. He or she is easy prey to the seductive darts hurled at him or her.
At the cutting edge, however, the tech-savvy consumer resents the intrusiveness of the target marketer. S/he may create more online persona and less penetrable screens to shield such persona.
Since the cyberworld is community minded, these online obfuscation and shielding strategies may be shared -- enabling the less-tech-savvy consumer to avail of these also.
Technologies of datamining and online avatar creation thus come to loggerheads.
If the technology provider is the same hydra-headed corporate monster -- such as Google or Yahoo -- it is a fair bet that, in the short run, the datamining, identity-reassembling side will triumph over the persona-obfuscating, avatar-multiplying side.
But in the long run, nothing is guaranteed. Consumers, cysumers, prosumers, avatars, and cyborgs -- these new "beings" -- will continue to innovate. There are already a billion of them (and they can "create" billions more) versus the few thousand smart brains in corporate labs.
Yep, the revolution will not be televised... and nor is it likely to be podcast.
Nik Dholakia
Rhode Island, USA
Captains of commerce and capital have torn loyalties in this race.
Technologies that enable consumers to access cyberspace in multiple and somewhat anonymous ways are perceived as empowering by the users. They lead to loyal users and, more importantly, motivate the users to create all manners of content -- made available at no or low cost to the technology platforms that support varied online persona.
On the other hand, conventional marketing wisdom demands the integration of these multiple online persona and to reach out to the "real person" behind them, to sell a variety of goods and services to him or her.
In most cases, the data-mined and cybernetically-assembled consumer -- the cysumer -- is not aware of being in the trained cross-hairs of target marketers. He or she is easy prey to the seductive darts hurled at him or her.
At the cutting edge, however, the tech-savvy consumer resents the intrusiveness of the target marketer. S/he may create more online persona and less penetrable screens to shield such persona.
Since the cyberworld is community minded, these online obfuscation and shielding strategies may be shared -- enabling the less-tech-savvy consumer to avail of these also.
Technologies of datamining and online avatar creation thus come to loggerheads.
If the technology provider is the same hydra-headed corporate monster -- such as Google or Yahoo -- it is a fair bet that, in the short run, the datamining, identity-reassembling side will triumph over the persona-obfuscating, avatar-multiplying side.
But in the long run, nothing is guaranteed. Consumers, cysumers, prosumers, avatars, and cyborgs -- these new "beings" -- will continue to innovate. There are already a billion of them (and they can "create" billions more) versus the few thousand smart brains in corporate labs.
Yep, the revolution will not be televised... and nor is it likely to be podcast.
Nik Dholakia
Rhode Island, USA
posted by Nik Dholakia at 8:30 PM
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