"A new medium arose, even one more powerful than broadcast, and its distribution economics favored infinite niches, not one-size-fits-all fare. The Internet's peer-to-peer architecture is optimized for a symmetrical traffic load, with as many senders as receivers and data transmissions spread out over geography and time. In other words, it is the opposite of broadcast.

Instead of the weak connection of the office cooler. we're increasingly forming our own tribes, groups bound together by affinity and shared interest....

These days our water coolers are increasingly virtual - there are many different ones, and the people who gather around them are self-selected."

From: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson

Book Review on Powells: A fascinating and groundbreaking study of business culture in the same vein as Malcom Gladwell's famous Tipping Point. With clarity and wit Anderson proposes that for too long have we suffered under the tyranny of the lowest common denominator, and that, in fact, "niche" culture is alive and well and the basis of an entirely new economic model. May every CEO — of companies big or small, digital or brick-and-mortar — open their eyes to the Long Tail.
Recommended by Gary, Powells.com

 http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=1401302378

Social software enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities.

Broadly conceived, this term could encompass older media such as mailing lists and Usenet, but some would restrict its meaning to more recent software genres such as blogs and wikis. Others suggest that the term social software is best used not to refer to a single type of software, but rather to the use of two or more modes of computer-mediated communication that result in community formation. In this view, people form online communities by combining one-to-one (e.g., email and instant messaging), one-to-many (Web pages and blogs), and many-to-many (wikis) communication modes. In many online communities, real life meetings become part of the communication repertoire. The more specific term collaborative software applies to cooperative work systems.

Common to most definitions is the observation that some types of software seem to facilitate "bottom-up" community development, in which membership is voluntary, reputations are earned by winning the trust of other members, and the community's mission and governance are defined by the communities' members themselves. Communities formed by "bottom-up" processes are contrasted to the less vibrant collectivities formed by "top-down" software, in which users' roles are determined by an external authority and circumscribed by rigidly conceived software mechanisms (such as access rights).

The term also arose in the late nineties to describe software emerging out of alliances between programmers and social groups whose particular kinds of cultural intelligence are locked out of mainstream software. In this understanding of the term, the social is understood to also have a political and aesthetic sense, not simply acting as a kind of glue for a collection of normatively understood 'agents' whose inter-relations are formatted by software. What both positions share is an understanding that particular design decisions and the grammar of interactions made possible by each piece of software is socially significant. As the term has become more important to the computer industry, this earlier use of the term has often been edited out of memory

Tools for Online Communication
Instant Messaging
Internet Relay Chat
Internet forums
Blogs or Weblogs
Wikis
Social network services
Social network search engines
Social guides
Social bookmarking
Social Citations
Social Libraries
Social Shopping Applications
Peer-to-peer social networks
Collaborative real-time editing
Virtual presence
Virtual worlds and Massively-Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs)
Other Specialized Social Applications

Adated from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_software

My friend David Bradfield is joining the New York office of Fleishman-Hillard to set up a new interactive, digital and social media group. Here is a recent comment from his blog:  

"From my perspective, every PR agency that offers "full service" should be learning about this space and embracing new opportunities to reach the niches. Social media, or whatever you want to call it, is an integral element of the future of PR. It's a neccessity.

PR and communication professionals have specialized for decades in generating coverage in "uncontrollable" media and other venues through relationships with influencers such as journalists, analysts and opinion leaders. It takes a true professional to understand what will add value and create a unique angle or perspective that makes an organization/product/service contextually relevant, timely and reliable.

In the new communication climate, understanding who's who online, what they write/talk about and providing information that is useful and adds depth or variety to their perspectice is key to successful public relations."

From: http://navigatecommunications.com/

Congradulations David!

Here is some new thinking on the evolution of the Press Release from a recent conference:

1. Write directly to your audience - including all key micro-segments – when appropriate. With the new approach, write one release (or “releaselet” — mini-release) for each audience using words and concepts they personally relate to.
2. Take advantage of research resources like Yahoo and Google keywords tools or Wordtracker to find out what terms people are searching for and integrate them into your “release.” Ensure that the way you structure your release and the keywords it contains are in alignment with what people are actually searching for.
3. Incorporate links back to content on your site, or add multimedia and RSS features to add richness to and extend the reach and life of your release.
4. Publish more often, take advantage of cheaper distribution channels like your own site, blog or services like PR Web.
5. Deliver a clear call to action.
6. Be more familiar.                                                                                                                         From: http://www.beyondblogging2006.com/archives/25