An interesting if somewhat breathless article in Fast Company on changing communications technologies (or "open social networks") and their impact on business and politics:
"In fact, it's hard to overstate the coming impact of these new network technologies on business: They hatch trends and build immense waves of interest in specific products. They serve giant, targeted audiences to advertisers. They edge out old media with the loving labor of amateurs. They effortlessly provide hyperdetailed data to marketers. If your customers are satisfied, networks can help build fanatical loyalty; if not, they'll amplify every complaint until you do something about it. They are fund-raising platforms. They unify activists of every stripe, transforming an atomized mass of individuals with few resources into an international movement able to put multinational corporations and governments on the defensive."
Read the rest here.
