Thesis 6 of 95: Clearing the Human Throat from Abstractions

Part of the blogging project about the 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto. All posts of the project are found here.

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The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

Now, in earlier posts, I think I've made this point repeatedly (one might say it IS my point), but this is a way more straight forward way of saying it. I don't think I need to be long-winded here. It might not be as intellectually stimulating, but it's good to get less abstract and more concrete sometimes. What I mean with the "Conversational Markets" are exactly this: a new form of value exchange not possible in the era of mass media.

Let me take some time and define all the interpretations of the Cluetrain terms I've used thus far:

Markets/Conversation: Exchange of value between humans (on a societal level, not individually).
Conversational Markets: A value exchange between humans that is emerging out of the capitalist market. Values are exchanged on the Internet and the possibilities it has given us. 
The Human Voice: The specific "structured structure" of a market. The exchange of value between humans has a "felt exchange of humanity" to it, it "sounds human". People exchanging the value  that the "Human Voice"-structure recognizes as legitimate means those people recognize each-other as humans. 

The Internet is a big part of this. Though the old is not ancient yet, and we still have to deal with the real political, social and economic problems of it, but that's not a reason to ignore the new. The Internet is destroying the media and communication monopolies necessary for the old market of capitalism, and is giving the ordinary people, of almost any economic class, access to exchange in a new market, of "conversation". 

Media, arts, journalism and debate is now in the reach of most people, through the various new possibilities of the Internet. It's not perfect, and sometimes it's barely even decent, but it's a thing. Realizing it's thing-ness means taking responsibility and control over it. As of now, I'm not sure this new exchange of value is really ready to go face-to-face with the old, but I'm hoping it will at least do some serious damage.

See you soon, thesis 7. 

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