What I’m trying to say is that in my opinion it’s stupid to talk about the end of mass media, what we should be discussing is when to use it, and making it appropriately. Having read the comments above maybe some countries should cut back on billboard usage and not have the ‘throw so much shit at the fan and hope some of it sticks’ approach. Maybe making the decision not to run a print ad in favour of using social media is a wise choice – but only if strategy requires this.

I also think it’s naiive to say we can seek out information that we need on the internet and that it will be enough to complete our lives. The internet is one point of reference for discovering information, and some of the time it can misguide us. Take for instance medical matters. If I go and see my Doctor and he or she tells me I’m okay, now I can go home and search the net for hours to discover that perhaps I have got a deadly disease after all! It is also misleading when you have been diagnosed with something as the temptation is to seek out all possible eventualities, half the time posted by individuals which may not be relevant to you. The internet isn’t gospel, it doesn’t just contain factual information.

Finally, a case in point is this. Last weekend I saw an ad on TV for a furniture sale. This led me to thinking that we need a dining room table and chairs, and that to get a bargain we should strike while the iron’s hot. Two days later I’m in-store having made a purchase in the sale. I could never have sought out that information using social media as I wasn’t trying to seek out a furniture sale at the time. I for one have never clicked on an ad i’ve seen online either, to me it only clutters up the net in the same way too many ads on TV does. I put up a shield that says ‘I will not give in’ and so nothing online ever reaches me in that way.

This is possible, but not in the Facebook-be-my-friend or Twitter-follow-me design. If a social media platform could be built around content and not people, and a viral propagation engine added to each post, then we would have a new mass media, without eliminating the personal benefits of social media.

Readers endorsing a publication would automatically become the new owner, and instantly broadcast it to their virtual community members as their own. The new recipients would likewise take ownership and kill or propagate the message. The reach would grow (or fade off) exponentially depending on perceived value to each consumer.

Because relevance control would be in the hands of the consumer, this model would be self-regulating and work to the same level of success in both aggressive U.S. and conservative European markets. And if deployed on mobile devices, the rate of news propagation would be just as rapid as mainstream mass media.

I also noticed that the news in Europe is more explicit and honest. That the advertising and media that is present is less bland, and far more creative.

So, in that sense, I would say that the opinion given by Mitch Joel is very cultural centric. America has a need for progress. Always obtaining bigger and better. But do we all really need to know everything? Or can we easily find the information specific to our personal needs?

I feel that this is why social media is becoming exceedingly more popular then it’s “mass media” counterparts. People are overwhelmed with messages, so they choose to seek what they actually want to know, not what they are being told they need to know.

Mitch’s reference to the internet as “something new and shiny” is almost embarrassing in it’s utter fantasy. I am 49 yrs old and grew up without the internet, cellphones, microwaves, cable TV, or remote controls. Yet I can see the paradigm shift and revolution that Web 2.0 social media represents.

Simply put I am sure a caveman never would have thought his cave canvass could be improved upon, a stone tablet never being replaced, or a 1930′s printing press never being replaced.

The world is changing-change with it Mitch or get left behind