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you to know what you're doing at the moment) and Friendfeed (which allows
people to build a customized feed of their desired content on their friends and
family) will continue to emerge and intensify the nature of the conversations
currently being held on blogs.
The impact of the social web will not only be felt on people's online
behavior, but also on their offline behavior. The social web has enabled peo-
ple to participate in communities in several ways and this has empowered
them to be more individualistic, confident, savvy and unique in their tastes,
style selections and brand preferences. This evolution will continue and will
further challenge the way luxury is perceived through social web references.
The key elements for brands, however, are maintaining the brand's DNA
and understanding that the social web is a collaborative space created by inde-
pendent users and not brands. Luxury brands have enormous opportunities to
steer social web elements in their favor if the rules of the game are followed.
The most important factor is that all the social media elements must tell a uni-
fied story and each of them should be interlinked with the others.
As the Internet celebrates 20 years of its existence as a collaborative tool in
2009, it is time for both clients and luxury brands to get past the notion that
luxury brands are confused online and, as the English are fond of saying, “get
on with it” - unless the brands prefer to have the Zen-master cat syndrome.
