"The Power of One"

In this weeks reading, from Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba's Citizen Marketers, the chapter expalains how much power a consumer has with the assistance of Web 2.0. The auther's write about meme's which I found to be quite interesting becuase it is a powerful tool for consumers. The author's explanition of a meme is:

A cultural transmitter that distinguishes an idea from the brillions of others
that float in a primordial soup of daily human existance.

I think Richard Dawkins camparison of a gene to a meme is very well put, he says: 'Just

as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to
body...memes propogate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to
brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called
imitation...examples of memes are tunes, catchphrases, clothes fashions,
and way of making pots or of building arches.'

These memes are so useful that they caused the break through of "iPod's Dirtly Secret" which was a video posted by a consumer becuase Apple was charging over $250 to fix his rechargable lithiumion battery. Within weeks, the meme was downloaded over a millin times. This meme even traveled via traditional media as the Washington Post and the Daily Yomiuri in Japan. This was a consumers meme at work which illustrates the Power of One.

The "Acta Diurna" of Today

From carving stories on pieces of stone or wood, to posting entries on MySpace and You Tube, we have greatly revolutionized the way we communicate our news. Today, our Acta Diurna, or "daily acts" consists of picking up our cell phone or getting on a computer to view the latest news. The chapter in Citizen Marketers begins to explains how powerful a publisher or broadcaster may be, starting with the astounding tool created by Johann Gutenberg, the printing press. The authors appropriately state the importance of the discovery of the printing press when stating:

"...the printing press made the production of books--in fact, the production of knowledge--a catalyst for changing culture. A new cultural die had been cast. Truth had been democratized. Society had been wrecked and rebuilt in new and egalitarian ways" (74).

I agree with the authors, because before the printing press, much of the media was controlled by the church. The church had the upper hand because of the difficulty of mass production. And today, similar to what was going on with the church, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is put in place to monitor communication through the airways, but that is were podcast come into play. Podcast make it possible to distribute communication to a vast audience with the assistance of iTunes; this is done without the needed approval of the FCC.

Our Acta Diurna has undoubtedly changed since the time of the Romans, but are still done for the same reason, to gossip and be well informed in the latest news.