While this “post” is a reprint of a 1998 New Yorker article*, the questions it raises are still timely: Are our spin meisters just spinning one another?
*This raises a sidebar issue of what it means when Malcolm Gladwell is described as one of the weblog’s “authors.” Is reprinting a nine-year old article he wrote and not identifying its origin what being a site “author” means? Ironically, Gladwell (in a later article and best-selling book) explained in great detail why there would be at least one reader of this article who would recognize immediately where it came from. See: maven.
Technorati Tags: PR
While I’m not familiar with Hotsoup, the “social networking site for influentials” that Patrick Ruffini says is apparently entering what people are referring to these days as “the dead pool,” I am familiar with the reason he gives: “HotSoup doesn’t give people what they want, but what some political muckety-mucks think they should have.” I would add need to want, but either way, failure in any venture usually comes when any muckety-muck decides what other people want.
Success comes when you create something you want and need — and then find other people like you who agree they need and want it also.
Technorati Tags: web2.0
