Interview on MySpace and social media

Yesterday I was interviewed on ABC Radio National’s Counterpoint program about MySpace and social media, together with Sebastian Chan, the web services manager for Powerhouse Museum – the interview is available for streaming and download (listen from 39:10). I talked about how social media is unleashing our latent humanity, by providing us with new ways of interacting and relating. We now have a multiplicity of new ways of communicating, all of them additional to the existing communication channels we have. We are exploring and discovering who we become as individuals and a society through using the new tools of social media. Second Life is a powerful manifestation of this, and we can expect to live significant parts of our life in alternative worlds. MySpace is a specific manifestation of how young people’s attention is shifting. They are spending less time on TV and traditional media, and more on their relationships. Companies can reach people within the social media where they spend their time, far better than through traditional advertising. Businesspeople are finding that they can build their networks online at least as well as they can in the usual cocktail parties. Gaming is becoming a social and relationship space, absolutely not just for young people and geeks.