Re: control and moolah, are you meaning from the marketer's perspective and impact? If so, man, it's changed a ton! One framework for looking at these elements is marketing as communication. Ethan will roll his eyes, but, every new channel of communication opened up on “the internet” enables more information to be shared and consumed by, errr, consumers. While there are still some channels (meaning printed materials, blogs, micro-blogs, forums, web apps, etc) under the sole direction of the marketer, they might as well kiss goodbye the concept of “control” in terms of having exclusive access to the consumer's brain!

I don't think that means giving up on efforts to put the intended message out there, but there is an obvious need for new strategies to have a positive effect on the communications out of the marketer's control. How about instead of “control” the focus shifts to “impact” or “intention and energy” (where energy is communication around products/services and intention is the decision to direct/amplify/mute/guide that energy towards a desired outcome)?

Content AND context… and given that most of social media is creating context (I heard “curating content” at BarCampRDU this weekend), it's a pretty important frame to add.

my take is that marketers exploited niches because context couldn't escape the niche. what's different about context now? to go back to your post, more creators, more recipients, and different relationships (e.g. looser, stronger, wider)…

Is there a “marketplace context” and “personal context”? Marketplace context = “what people think of the product” or “a marketplace's valid opinion”?

person + product + marketing message + context (marketplace + personal) = consumer decision

and how does “control”, “$$$” and other frames vary within that equation from before to now?

The consumer context could then be broken down into criteria like I was toying with here http://bryanlanders.tumblr.com/post/42962678/br.... This is where social media completely changes the way the equation works vs pre-social media. I suggest this addition because I think even with a crappy person + crappy product + crappy message, consumers might still decide to buy based on their context! Think about peer pressure (did you ever make your parents buy a bad product for you only because you wanted to fit in?), viral/P2P media (created by the marketer or not), or even just a positive review of the product by a trusted source.

Even though new media/content/etc has insanely blown up the context part of the equation, it was there before. Wasn't that a huge way marketers exploited niches pre-internet?

human life seems a series of planes, all good and all evil, right here. pick your level, if you have a choice, and do your work

enjoy

appreciate your emphasis on margin, above. reality is a great, and relentless, echo chamber..

vo nyugen giap was a vietnamese general with a phd and said an amazing thing about america .. ah, your computers, they merely serve to render your ignorance more efficient .. and while i can see a bright light of possiblity coming over the horizon, i agree with your observation of the human element, look at the comments on youtube

i think you nailed the central point, for enterprises, if it helps with strategy, we will do it. soon. probably. but most of my interest and excitement comes from my time (and philosophical/spiritual/consciousness interests) out on the edge, where friendfeed and twitter are revealing something of the next phase of life on earth, and it is totally exciting to see it come into being.

companies, like scientists with their need for proof, need to see it on the bottom line. yogis have been smiling with hyper-connectivity for eons.

enjoy, thanks for your time

do you know anything about spiral dynamics?