This is a good read despite the alarmist headline. I personally don’t mind a few extra tweets mixed in as long as they are relevant to my interests.
What caught my eye is what the author said below…
How do you grow really, really big — big enough to keep the shareholders happy? By running a celebrity-packed bandwagon right down the middle of the road of course. Too bad you’re going to annoy the hell out of long-time users who found value in a service exactly because it took a different path. A small hardcore of loyal users don’t please shareholders.
Yep. I have brought this up a few times recently. To do mass media you have to reach the masses and the masses want to talk about the Kardashians for some reason.
The example I use with my college students goes like this: We’re going to start a show that analyzes the Isis situation in Iraq. We could hire Colin Powell who would be have authority and be knowledgable, or we could hire The Situation. You know which show will actually get media attention (aka free advertising) and eyeballs (which can be monetized)? yep, The Situation’s Iraq.
Maybe we could call it The Situation Room. Ha. You can have that idea for free CNN. Sorry Wolf Blitzer.