horizontal development

RE: Economics of Social Media on el oso, el moreno and el abogado

I usually cringe when I see a post with "Social Media" in the title, but this was great.

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- The monetization of social authentic media is the digital equivalent of media consolidation. Yahoogle (Goohoo?) don't deny it - "Um, yeah... we're kinda just all about the money." Online media is still the domain of those who would build the web and its media structure vertically instead of horizontally.

Horizontal Development: Building outwards, developing capacity in a sustainable way in order to create services and tools that are the most useful to the broadest number of people possible - especially those on the margins or outside of the technological spectrum.

Vertical Development: Building all these nifty web services (Flickr, Youtube, etc.) that all end up serving the same hipster clientele who clusterspooge on it until the next big thing comes along.

Walk into a cafe with free wifi, or look at a random cross-section of members on Flickr or Youtube, or even your an average Twitter buddy list. Odds are, you'll find upper-middle-class whites making up the lion's share of all these groups - a continuation of the class and economic segregation (not just in the US) that dates back well past either of our memories. Sure, you'll find the occasional powerful photo from a Peruvian photo journalist or a quick videophone post of riots in Kampala, but they're the exception to the rule - and they've been around in National Geographic for much longer.