The Fix

Last week Time Warner’s AOL, getting somewhat long-of-tooth in the digital age, announced the $850 million acquisition of Bebo, described as the third largest online social networking site after MySpace and Facebook. This major web-related M&A deal comes on the heels of the proposed $44.6 billion take-over of “web pioneer” Yahoo by Microsoft (or the ultimate combination of Yahoo with another large corporate or private equity aggregator that Yahoo prefers in order to retain its iconoclastic persona , to the extent it still may exist).

I just learned that “Bebo” is a backronym (love that word) for “Blog early, blog often”. Indeed, early-adoption and frequent, even obsessive, participation may well be a necessity for developing a sustainable identity and voice on the Web.

The recent deals by the Masters of Universal (read: suits) are centered around projected future revenues streams derived from high velocity “web-action” not yet proven to be capable of monetization. To justify the hefty amounts involved in the recent M&A transactions, fiduciary and shareholder pressures will force the suits in these hierarchic organizations to try to commercialize and monetize the activity within the still “protected walls” of the acquired “networks” in competition against one another.

This arms-race to commercialization by each of the major web-oriented players operating behind their own protected gardens is based on a dubious proposition. Most of the existing online social networks (MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo) and others are already only one “OpenSocial” click apart. This one-click is, for now, a barrier to seamless connectivity–but the walls are about to be breached. The techno-gunslingers, an independent breed of giant killers nurturing their magic bean-stalks in their garages everywhere, are developing a multitude of schemes to merge online activity across networks. This will increase the rush to monetization and the web frenzy.

Within a few short months we will have de facto convergence into the Mother-of-All-Social-Networks, the effective consolidation of Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, and most other platforms in cyber-space. This motha will be big, wild, and woolly–and cluttered with commercialization. What happens then?

There are already a mind-boggling eight million (8,000,000!!!) bands registered on MySpace alone–with duplicate satellite pages created by musicians at “OppositeOfMySpace” for redundancy and reach, and the numbers keep growing. The 1) pressures for mass-based commercialization and monetization of web-action by the major players and 2) convergence of all music sites described above, encompassing established artists, indie artists, and artists-in-the-making, will present (as usual) both crisis and opportunity.

Netizens use the web in two operating modes. 99% of the time (it is probably more) we are in “passive” mode, and 1% of the time we are in “active” mode (blogging early and often, whatever). It is a no-brainer that it is better to be in active mode as a player rather than a passive observer if one chooses to enter the digital arena. If, as an artist, you are unable or unwilling to increase the amount of time to project your true identity and voice on the web, you should align yourself with those you trust, your most passionate fans and intermediaries/facilitators, who will “be-bo” on your behalf if you give them the proper incentive.

How do you project your identity and voice on the web effectively? Let’s frame this issue for possible resolution in terms of 1) “signal” and “noise” in the broad context of 2) linkages operating within a hierarchy of networks within networks (within networks–you get the picture). You must create nuanced identity and voice to fit network context ranging from “small groups” to linkages in a hierarchy interconnected by “super-nodes”. In communications theory and in life, what is “noise” (spam) to some, may be “signal” (a valuable communication or network connection) to others–depending on what part of a hierarchy of networks you are dealing with. Even spam sucks for some, but not necessarily for others. As the techno-slingers like to say, this is a non-trivial exercise. Again, without a calibrated incentive/disincentive system, the complexity of this undertaking would defy resolution.

There are elements of “value” in our activities as economic and social beings that cannot be quantified with the same level of precision as financial capital (i.e., money). For now, we call these things of value “social capital,” in contradistinction to “spam” on the one side with little or no value and “tangible capital” on the other side that clearly, and by definition, is value that can be created, stored, and exchanged–Economics 101.

Our inability to quantify social capital gets to the very heart of the dilemma facing indie artists: the wild and woolly web in process of infinite expansion at the same time that Mr. Big is trying to consolidate and commercialize the web-action, a process that most indie artists as iconoclasts find antithetical to every fiber of their being.

When convergence takes place, we should strive to develop at our Nightschool a better way for indie artists to create, store, and exchange social capital which is, for now, a default metaphor for things of value that cannot be measured. Just one notion that seems to be heading in the right direction is the concept of SocialBuxx™, a well-articulated quantitative approach to “keep score” and maintain some semblance of order without surrendering to Mr. Big. To be sure, trying to quantify an elusive intangible to become a de facto standard may well be quixotic–and some have noted with insight that it may take the magic out of creation and discovery. Nevertheless, in my view, excellence is the absence of disorder without unrelieved uniformity, and we should do our utmost to establish this condition as we individually seek to develop our identity and voice on the Web.