It’s sometimes hard to remember how far out there on the tech edge we are. If you’re reading this right now, chances are you’re right there with me. RSS, blogs, Flickr, Facebook (still wondering why I joined …), Twitter. Most of the people I run into on a daily basis haven’t a clue what I’m talking about and if it’s no more than a one-off social “Hi, how are you…” thing…I don’t even try to explain it much. Renee, I think, would probably agree with me. She’s been reflecting on this reality (or pseudo-reality) that we live in recently:
In an odd way, it made me feel like a ghost, as if I was standing alone in an online world. Not that I had a desire to reach everyone in the class, but if I had, it would require a lot of effort. Sure, some may be on classmates.com. I found a few (yeah, only a few) through their service before my last high school reunion.
We have no idea how far we have come in LESS than one generation until we do a surreal exercise like this one. A reminder that there are always other realities and choices when we think there is only one.
Source: down the avenue: Web 2.0 Echochamber: Another Reality
All of which brings me to the title of this post, who should our next target market be? By that I mean, are we missing building and expanding our potential markets? Do we need, as an industry, try to connect with the folks who haven’t a clue about what we do? Or … maybe we should just stay the course?
I’m of two minds on this. Yeah, it would be great if lots of people drank from the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid, but that’s how the Web 1.0 bubble happened … if we make Web 2.0 the savior of our lives, well my hype-o-meter will probably red line and explode faster than you can upload a picture to Flickr or find an old friend on Facebook.
Interestingly enough in the 24 hours or so since I started writing this post, the Pew Internet & American Life project has hit the news… and gee it seems that Renee and I were channeling what folks are talking about in the review of the report.
Rather than make this post long, drawn out and risk your head hitting the keyboard as you fall asleep reading … I’ll just do an other post to cover that one…
