I blogged this article on Troubled Tech concepts and business models that probably won’t make it much further into the future at Halfway To Concord.
This is a serious issue for SEO PR as it will affect the growing role and value of social media in the SEO PR workflow.
I especially agree with the the analysis of microblogs (Twitter), social news sites (digg), online video (youtube wannabes), enterprise social networking.
Sorry. I just don’t get Twitter in its current metamporphisis. In the meantime it may be a good place to listen for chatter about your brand. Digg, Delicious, and Stumbleupon are a playground for mischief and gaming. The Belkin debacle is just the tip of the iceberg as black hat experts game such platforms to get their news some traction.
Gaming social news media platforms produces what? Reliable news? More eyeballs? I’m not sure. In this model social media reduces PR to gaming the platform by finding the gatekeeper bloggers that have managed to become BMOCs that are also gaming the system.
From the viewpoint of Integrated Marketing Communications, is this really the way you want various stakeholders to interact with your brand. At some point, companies need to decide if and how they will protect the integrity of their brands in relation to social media news sites.