The Media (Marketing) model of the 20th Century was based on unilateral Mass Communication - interaction between organization and consumer was expensive. The Media model for the 21st Century is inverting the old one. The X-axis represents Interaction, while the Y-axis represents bandwidth (or cost to produce). The LUQ (top left quadrant) includes Movies, TV, Books, etc: very expensive to produce with very little interactivity. The LLQ includes Art, Postal Mail, etc: very cheap to produce but again not very interactive. The RUQ includes person-to-person instruction, etc: expensive to produce but highly interactive. Finally, RLQ includes SMS, email and – most extremely – Twitter: practically free and incredibly interactive. We have shifted from LUQ to RLQ – this shift is producing a cultural shock, perhaps as resonate as the Industrial Revolution.
The Web is no longer a static and impersonal Web. It is increasingly dynamic and social, opening up new opportunities for communication, collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Yesterday’s Web was about one-way facing pages that took weeks to appear in search engines. Today’s Web is about instant, social and real-time exchanges.
Twitter may be an easy and inexpensive connector. The Real-time Web is definitely evolving. Nevertheless, organizations that wish to maximize their value to their stakeholders need to invest and cultivate a portfolio of online assets. Twitter is like a stream; but blogs are like a base camp. Don’t confuse tactics with strategies.