Belonging

The notion of the 'global tribe' is one that I've long written about.

This is the paradigm shift whereby communities move online and you have a better connection with someone three thousand miles away than you do with your own physical neighbour.

Watching a presentation this week by Joe Rospars, who was President Obama's News Media Director during his candidacy, this was further crystallised by how he described his company, Blue State Media. He used the concept of 'membership'.

Social media might be usurping traditional media, but this is a thread that links all major trends in discovery and audience participation and has significant implications for TV2.0.

Traditional media is highly geocentric, new media is not; its audience can come from anywhere on the web. The aggregation of these new audiences - the global tribes - opens out new possibilities.

Building an internet TV service and attracting visitors once is not too difficult - especially with a budget, but the key to the success of a service is to make it 'sticky'; the internet is a much more fickle place than the real world and this is easier said than done. The concept of 'discovery', a 'visit' or an 'engagement' is very different from that of a 'community', a 'tribe' or a 'member'. The latter signify a degree of ownership and belonging which are essential elements in online success.

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