If you’re going to be in the media business, insularity is not a good thing. Insularity is never a good thing, although I should not generalize as undoubtedly there are exceptions. Pluto, for example, is doing fine out there, and has been for some time. Pluto’s been out there, you know, even before the worldwide web. But that’s different. That’s a planet in distant orbit. Still, if given a choice, I bet Pluto would interact a little with the rest of the universe, at least on occasion, just to see what else is going on.
I was reminded of Pluto and its distance when seeing the Mashable story this morning about Twitter finally rolling out a Blackberry app, in beta, some time later this year… it now being February, and later this year comprising almost the year’s totality. In other words, no time soon, no hurry, it’s only Blackberry. Now Twitter hasn’t been out there as long as Pluto, although it sometimes feels like it, but nevertheless a long time, and long enough to think about the most popular smartphone around, as unhip as it may be. That’s right, as incredible as it probably seems to some around the core of web x.0, the Blackberry device still comprises almost half of the market, almost twice as much as the next closest competitor, the revered iPhone, which in turn still outdoes the Android phone by multiples, and somebody should probably make this known at a conference or something. I’m just saying.
By way of contrast, I look at the way in which Foursquare is conducting its business, and I tip my hat. Here is a company that is about as novel and indicative of social web hipness as can be, which has gone out of its way to interact with the big universe outside of Silicon Valley and downtown NYC. In the last few weeks alone, this group, which has been around for a far lesser time than Twitter, has announced strategic alliances with countless traditional magazines, television networks, and other businesses north of 14th Street… and has even rolled out a Blackberry app that works well. Granted, these magazines are not exactly subversive and many are still (sigh) available at “news stands” for “money.” (I use quotation marks because of the retro aspect of such things.) And similarly, the television networks with which Foursquare is cavorting are not yet accessible with Boxee, but believe it or not HBO is still pretty popular on “cable television.”
Now, before I dig a hole for myself and come across as an old media crank, which I am not, I will point out that traditional media has for decades been just as insular as some of the web x.0 may be at risk of becoming… and perhaps even more so. New web entrepreneurs should learn from this history lesson, because traditional media is now itself losing steam, perhaps as a result of this insularity, and what seems new today will probably not last forever. One should look at Foursquare and the strategy on which it is embarking as a positive and refreshing approach that is hopefully groundbreaking. Which is to say, bridging the divide between the old and new, bringing the traditional into the fold of the innovative, are actions and a way of thinking that have throughout history proven more effective than isolated comfort. The latter, in my opinion, could lead to a false sense of permanence in an environment that is in flux, and possibly even cyclical… Pluto and the universe notwithstanding.
