The Social Networking Weblog

The venerable business mag, Business Week, has an article about how big media just wants to relate. The article is actually about how big media is buying their way into social networking. The big news, of course, is the fact that the big big big ad agency, Interpublic Group (IPG) is throwing Facebook a $10M bone for an equity stake equivalent to my big left toe nail. (Actually, they are buying ads. The equity is a "separate" deal. Facebook is giving them a stake. Right!)

In reality, the title of the article is a big fat misnomer. This is how big media (IPG) plans to start "relating" to social networks of real people hanging out online:

IPG also created a user-generated content lab last month. "My task is to acquire propriety insights into what is happening with user-generated content, to engage with the media community and help them develop advertising models, and to help them execute specific programs," says Brian Monahan, director of the Los Angeles-based lab. The former Microsoft (MSFT) executive started work at the lab just two weeks ago.

What are we? A bunch of monkeys. Who needs a lab to relate to people? That's sad. I think the saddest part is that these are the people that are spending millions and millions of dollars from the world's largest companies' ad budgets to "relate' products to people. Yet, they don't know how to simply have conversations with these people in which they are trying to relate.

Here's a free tip: Go watch Planet of the Apes. We're the apes. Get real about treating us as equals. Or we'll just take over.

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~admin

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