I was quoted in FT last week, this was part of an article by Stefan Stern on how companies should be more confident with web 2.0, not hiding under the table. It was the first time I had ever heard of Andrew Keen, who has a dystopian view of web 2.0 and is critical of the four tenets of the Cluetrain manifesto i.e. customer, citizenship, community and conversation. He releases a book soon called “the cult of the amateur” written with this darker view of web 2.0. I personally see mainly positive aspects of a more “social” web but I also want the “web 2.0 will cure cancer” brigade to be counter-balanced.
The whole discussion around him is laden with irony. Furious commentary on how misled he is (you don’t have to like everyone in your community right?), his own meme has been transported at lightning speed by the social web (OK, with help from mainstream) and some recent criticism has been anonymous.
He said in an interview that “after reading my book I doubt that any chief marketing officer of a large corporation will have the confidence to let go of their brand and allow any anonymous internet user to abuse it”. I agree with this in the main, but shouldn’t the CMO be interested in when what is said, is meaningful, put in front of many people and put in context of the company brands and their objectives? With an ever increasing amount of conversations (sorry Andrew) it just stands to reason that some will be more important than others and some can and should be ignored…