Global Neighborhoods examines the impact of social media and low-cost networks to business and culture. It examines the powerful changes that phenomena such as YouTube, MySpace, Bebo, SecondLife, Skype, text and multimedia blogging are having on business, politics and culture. It looks at other society-changing factors.
Central to the book is the argument that the inernet is dramatically lowering the barriers to where people hang out. Geography is becoming much less relevant as people everywhere use the internet to find others who share common interests. We no longer live in just one neighborhood, but in many, based on our mix of interests, whether they be religion, sex, hummingbirds or macramé.
From the business perspective, this turns the marketplace upside down. The power is moving from large incumbent organizations into communities where the people who are the most generous have the greatest influence. Companies can try to start their own communities, but unless they open it to competitors, they have little more than factory towns. Likewise, in the global neighborhoods, people making decision based on the advice on trusted friends. Big budget ad and branding campaigns are rendered impotent in these new neighborhoods.
