FanLib: FAIL
December 28, 2007 The Christian Science Monitor holds forth on the good and bad in the "digital race" of 2007. In their annual summing up, FanLib is the "bad" object lesson for "Web 2.0".
Digital race? WTF, dudes! It isn't a race, it's a freaking big bang spreading outwards in every direction.
The corporate attitude towards "Web 2.0" is so darn inane, based on the belief businesses can, and should, shape the Internet into nothing more than a customer support and marketing research group. For the company's benefit, of course. Assholes!
CSM: Fans responded by dissecting and criticizing content on the FanLib site and eventually forming their own site dedicated to archiving and protecting fan fiction, called the Organization for Transformative Works... The takeaway? Companies need to understand what motivates audiences before creating business models around them.
The takeaway? Oh, please! The Internet is not all about the corporate bottom line! The Christian Science Monitor is falling into the FanLib trap here, judging Internet "success" by how thoroughly customers are exploited.
Yes, my period is over. Why do you ask? *munches chocolate-drizzled caramel corn*
Note: The Christian Science Monitor has a circulation of 70,000, and an estimated online readership worldwide of at least two million. It is the largest news service to carry a FanLib story (negative or positive) so far. Before this article, FanLib was mentioned only in trade and academic news publications with circulation of at most 20,000.
Digital race? WTF, dudes! It isn't a race, it's a freaking big bang spreading outwards in every direction.
The corporate attitude towards "Web 2.0" is so darn inane, based on the belief businesses can, and should, shape the Internet into nothing more than a customer support and marketing research group. For the company's benefit, of course. Assholes!
CSM: Fans responded by dissecting and criticizing content on the FanLib site and eventually forming their own site dedicated to archiving and protecting fan fiction, called the Organization for Transformative Works... The takeaway? Companies need to understand what motivates audiences before creating business models around them.
The takeaway? Oh, please! The Internet is not all about the corporate bottom line! The Christian Science Monitor is falling into the FanLib trap here, judging Internet "success" by how thoroughly customers are exploited.
Yes, my period is over. Why do you ask? *munches chocolate-drizzled caramel corn*
Note: The Christian Science Monitor has a circulation of 70,000, and an estimated online readership worldwide of at least two million. It is the largest news service to carry a FanLib story (negative or positive) so far. Before this article, FanLib was mentioned only in trade and academic news publications with circulation of at most 20,000.