Howard Rheingold has given an extensive interview to social media blogger Robin Good. Howard shares his views on “Web 2.0 and How Traditional Mass Media Can Adapt To The Sweeping Changes Generated by New Social Media”.
Robin Good has also interspersed some thought-provoking YouTube video embeds throughout the blog posting.
Howard discusses how new participatory media literacies are emerging. He also offers some advice for telcos who are resistant to change:
If your survival is at stake, you have to devote some significant money and take some serious risks to experiment. And, experimenting means to be prepared for some of those efforts to fail. Failure doesn’t always mean that you made the wrong decision, it also means that you are closer to identify which is the right track to follow.
If you are a venture capitalist, you would know that you would have to get many failures before you get one big hit.
And if your survival is at stake, you’re going to have to make those bets and spread those bets around and be prepared for something that might not work.
Telcos and television broadcasters are still not used to that, they’re used to having a great deal of control over their products; they’re not used to spend money experimenting.
That’s why I advise these large corporations to create new companies and to go on and look at all those entrepreneurs out there who are creating new applications in their space and invest in them, partner with them, learn from them.