The new mindset among youth is a group mentality. When a teen subscribes to a collection of feeds, publishes a blog, puts a tag on a post, tells a friend about a video they are functioning as a network. Since the internet is fueling these connections, we’ll call it internetworking (because the world needs another fake buzz word).
Generation Y is “hopelessly addicted to the hive.” They are basically starting to rely on their networks to aid in their decision process. The theory of cumulative advantage (see this NYT article) states that people tend to like what other people like, making the popular even more so. So much for the long tail.
A new study from Alloy [via AdAge] shows that 96% of tweens and teens have used social networking technologies, 71% of them connect at least once a week. These sites are fast becoming a hub of information exchange. Further more, nearly half engaged with a brand on an SNS in the past month. Networked social influence is starting to determine a company’s market share or market failure. Now, brands must go through these influential networks, what we call Spheres of Influence–and credibly–as they move from first-to-market to mass-market.
This networked individualism is leading to a rise in crowd clout. It’s easier for opinions to snowball, gather momentum, and make an impact. The proliferation of Social Commerce Sites that include pick lists and Digg-like voting mechanisms such as Stylehive, Crowdstorm, Yahoo Shoposphere, ThisNext and Kaboodle could all become crowd clout leaders.
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1 » Hearst buys Kaboodle, inspires a social shopping roundup » Next Great Thing // Aug 9, 2007 at 6:51 am
[...] social commerce sites are driven by “internetworking” and could become crowd cloud leaders. Social shopping is also the next frontier for [...]
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