Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The advantage of the social web lies in its transparency and independence
of thought, but these also pose its biggest challenges. It is the responsibil-
ity of luxury brands to understand these intricacies and how to tackle them
before jumping onto the bandwagon of creating blogs and social networks.
Key issues linked to the position that luxury should take on the social web
should be assessed, including whether luxury brands should be aggregators
as opposed to dispersers on the social web. Should luxury brands be observ-
ers instead of participants? Should the brands be news broadcasters or news
respondents? Should they watch, wait and see for the moment or should they
plainly ignore the social web in the belief that it will run its course and go
away? The issues are multiple and the approaches for tackling them are even
more complex due to the relatively early stage of the social web in luxury cou-
pled with the intricate nature of the luxury business. But they must be tackled.
The seeds of the social web were sown in the early days of the Internet
when software companies used “user-groups” to test-run systems and pro-
grams. These groups were also used to enable people to come together to
master the new technologies and also to connect with like-minded people. In
addition to this early period, the social web of today came about as an off-
shoot of the chat rooms and message boards that previously existed. If you
remember the early days of MSN chat and Yahoo Messenger, there was a
strong fascination among people about chatting to others whom they didn't
know but had the chance to discover and connect with (or not). This period
was however marked with anonymity as people preferred to hide behind the
mask of pseudo names and identities even though they influenced one anoth-
er's thoughts and actions through private conversations. The early part of the
noughties also brought websites like Amazon which promoted (and still pro-
motes) participation through product reviews, feedbacks and ratings. Again,
the purpose remains to influence others with a shared interest.
Today, these elements have been reproduced in the social web but the
individual is no longer anonymous. If you log on to FaceBook, MySpace,
LinkedIn and Twitter, you will be amazed at how much information people are
willing to share publicly about themselves, ranging from how many children,
dogs and cats they have to how they bagged a million-dollar deal, not to men-
tion their holiday photos, family portraits and even modelling wannabe photos.
People no longer only want a voice online, they also want a face. They don't
only want to be heard, they also want to be seen. The social web provides an
outlet for expressing people's ideas, interests, emotions and even obsessions.
As a result, individuals have become bold and many are so involved in the
social media that one may wonder if their lives depended on it. I recently came
across a blog that has been in existence for three years with daily updates
which no one has ever responded to or commented on and I wondered why
the blogger is still determined to inform and convince the world that there
is an artistic concept behind the sky's blueness and that a movie should be
made about it. But this may be his only outlet for expressing himself and
