This post aims to be thought-provoking, yet I hope you won’t skip it.

While Twitter works as a messaging tool with limited local aggregation (though some call it a social network…), Friendfeed is a pure aggregator linking different platforms. Both offer a direct or indirect way to respond and provide comments to others, which helps develop a conversation-like appearance.  

However, can we really call it a conversation?

Does it sound revolting to your ears?
Please don’t refrain from leaving a comment…after reading the rest of the post.

Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and Sonny Gill shared some thoughts on the subject in the following two posts:
1. Do you Converse or Broadcast? & 2. When is Broadcasting OK on Twitter?

While both talked about the importance of conversation, they also show that the basis of Twitter is broadcasting (call it irony) and that new users will intuitively use it for self-branding. According to Sonny “Twitter is often mistaken as a broadcasting platform for people to spit out anything and everything. In the end, adhering to the Twitter culture and being respectful of the tips listed above will influence your experience…”

Aha! So there is more to Twitter than just a piece of software! The users have made it evolve from a broadcasting tool to a conversational platform by incorporating guidelines or a culture. At the end of the day, a tool is a means and not an end, and its value lies in the way it is used and not necessarily its original purpose. Text messaging on mobile phones has already proven this in the past. Some countries have serious education issues due to text messaging since teenagers have adapted their writing to the limited writing space for text messages, and ignore correct grammar. So why not call it a cultural evolution?

Whether we are talking about blogs or micro-blogs, both share one common value: content. There are millions of bloggers around the world and many have started using micro features to obtain speed, visibility and simplicity. Most users share information about their life, business, ideas and recent discoveries that they’ve made. People connect to others based on quality of the content, updating speed, but also for the prominence of the communicator. This is human and even Lemurian (don’t forget I’m a Lemur); we all act the same way. While many use the latter reason in order to develop their own personal network and obtain visibility, all this actually shows one important trend:

By placing information at the centre, the Internet has trivialized people. Think about it: only a minority puts the source in their tweets, except if published by a paper, and social network members often place the relationship before the actual person. If information were the main concern, wouldn’t it imply that the most important fact would be to know where to find the most suitable or original fact and not the most convenient one? In this case, popularity does not guarantee the best result, even if the size of the network helps. Since many tweet about online discoveries, they may add a link to the place where they found it, which in turn can be the result of aggregation or word-of-mouth. In other words, authors can be happy to see their news-piece propagating, but their name might get lost in the process. Great minds are less than often capable communicators.

The world is made up of a few mavens and many connectors (read Tipping Point for more info) and the virtual world might have become more beneficial to the second category. Today, only a handful of mavens who share their knowledge also have a large direct readership. Most connectors redirect the information while adding some personal insight.

Are these disparaging ways part of our new culture, where popularity overtakes value? Is this the new facet of Pop culture? Was Andrew Keen that far from reality with his book The Cult of the Amateur?

Some say that popular culture and the mass media have a symbiotic relationship, as each depends on the other in an intimate collaboration. Kings of the past used entertainment and bread to raise their popularity rating; which could justify saying that popularity might have been king for ages. Does this mean that by spreading information using addictive means and increasing their readers base, a few popular bloggers (and micro-bloggers) are the kings of the 21st century and the new conveyors of trends & cultures?

If Twitter and the other micro-blogging tools are indeed broadcasting channels, then we can count ourselves lucky that a participative and conversational culture has been developed. But here come the two major differences with all the other facets of pop culture: firstly, we are not talking about something tangible or even sensorial such as music, cooking, or clothes. Instead, the focus is the information about those subjects (did you say “magazine”?). Secondly, most “artists” have managers, agents or counselors; yet, in our case the one conveying the message is also the one managing the flow and the cultural guidelines.

Popularity also brings its share of fans and followers, in turn creating the bandwagon effect. Can we really talk about conversation and equal participation when some prominent bloggers are connected 24h/day?

There are many questions in this post and no answers. We all believe that social media has and will have a huge impact on our society. The fact that companies and some institutionalized people are trying to get a hold on it might bring a shift in power.

Nietzsche considered knowledge as power, but in today’s world isn’t it the game master, the one controlling the rules and the flow who has the power?

Were you among the 1,700+ members attending LeWeb 2008 in Paris two weeks ago? In that case, you may have noticed two of our team members wearing the following T-shirt:

Or did you miss this great event organized by Loic Lemeur and his wife? In any case, you may have heard about the series of technical issues the attendees faced at the event - there are more than enough posts about this subject and so there’s no need to add my share. All in all, the event was quite successful. There were good speakers and interesting people to meet.

Yet, we may ask ourselves if such an expensive event is worth attending. While we all have our different reasons for attending local or international gatherings – be it to meet people, learn the latest news, or simply to get away from the office – our main goal was to make new, interesting acquaintances.

But is this enough? Is the return satisfying?

How would you measure the ROI? What makes it valuable to you? Key indicators would be different from one person to another based on jobs and interests. Yet, while webinars are becoming increasingly common and tools such as social networks and micro-blogging make it easier to get in touch with the “target group”, why would we still spend time and money to go to another city, country or even continent to attend an event?

While attending LeWeb, we met potential customers and collaboration partners and had interesting conversations with pleasant people such as Anina from 360fashion.net. Yet, the most valuable return came in the form of a better understanding of our own positioning. The start-ups world is quite unique. It mixes culture, dreams and ambition incongruously, while having unwritten rules generated by a handful of successful entrepreneurs and reputed early adopters. Discovering and benchmarking LeWeb attendees has helped us better understand our actual situation and the efforts required to adapt to this exceptional environment. This might not be measurable; nevertheless, such knowledge can hardly be ascertained by other means.  

Based on LeWeb’s experience we can share the following adage:

“Be at the right place, at the right time with the right mood and luck may be smiling upon you.”

If you don’t go with high expectations, you might be surprised by what’s coming. Can we measure the impact? Maybe from mid to long term.

Even so, there has to be more down-to-earth reasons for people to want to attend such events.

What would you say? Feed us your thoughts!