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Digital Marketing and Prosumers, what a mix!

When I read the term Prosumer in Wikinomics by Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, it hit me hard. To be fair, the term Prosumer was first used by Toffler in 1980 itself. But Wikinomics, provides great insights into mass collaboration with numerous examples, set me thinking. I started looking for examples for Prosumption around me.

Prosumer (Producer+Consumer) is a term that signifies how even traditional media such as print (a little slow) , TV and online are adapting in involving common folks like me and you in creating content for them, and thereby building more content and greater involvement, and maybe credibility too.

I was a little befuddled recently when this blog started getting some visitors refered by the good old Wall Street Journal website. When I went to the source page, I found that on WSJ has an article on Digital Marketing on which I had written a post too and WSJ has used Sphere to pick it up and so nicely provide a link to my post.Maybe this is a very normal thing, but for me it was exciting enough to tell all my friends. What a word-of-mouth publicity I caused for WSJ! (Not that they need, but..!!)


While tradional Indian online media has been slow to adapt to this (new, really?) concept of prosumer and prosumption, some such as IBNlive have started a concept called Citizen Journalist wherein folks such as me and you get to hold the mike and report on a community issue which IBNLive would broadcast on its channel. Infact it has a dedicated page on its site to recent stories submitted by prosumers.





Sounds very exciting to me. See how a student becomes a journalist and reports on happenings are her university.(Don't blame me if the video is slow, it is directly from IBNLive servers).

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