Digital Literacy and Narrative Media
Last year Warren Buffet’s lunch auction reached a cool $3.46 million to have lunch with the billionaire wizard from Omaha. While most of us may think that this sum is ridiculous given that the sum is many times more than what we will earn in our lifetime to have lunch with a pleasant old man for one day. However, there are others that bid and compete to earn a spot to pick the brain of a billionaire that is willing to give up much of his wealth for charity, and who loves the thrill of investing and selling. The lunch date with Warren and the winner of the auction is about one thing only—access to information. It allows the winner to find out what makes Mr. Buffet so successful and to help the individual try to understand a living legend behind the billions. If Warren Buffet’s lunch time can cost millions, what price would we charge others to have lunch with us? And what price would we charge to read a message emailed to our inbox?
The major trend in media development that sounded ridiculous to many when it first came out in December of last year was Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook charging a $1 for advertisers to send a message to their consumers and $100 per message to Mr. Zuckerberg himself. This approach to advertisement is unique in that it appeals to individuals not consumers. Ads no longer need to have neither a broad appeal nor a special group cater to, but could be more responsive to individual interests and buying patterns. The $1 message will not be lost in spam folders and likely, the user will click on the message to read its contents. However, this seems to be a slippery slope; if advertisers all move to use this approach, their efforts will become ineffective and compel recipients to move advertisements to the spam folder once again. On the other hand, if message costs were weighted differently to each individual, this could be a new way to make money on social capital.
Social credit scores such as political capital, friendship connections, social influence, and the like would determine the cost per message to be sent. As a student studying media psychology, I would be interested in comparing and contrasting how credit scores (financial history) and social credit scores (social influence, political capital, religious connections, friendship connections, etc.) would influence purchasing power and purchasing influence.
This type of information would give lenders a better barometer in lending practices. Citizens would participate in maintaining a good financial history and social reputation to increase their social and financial credit scores. However, this requirement would assume that to achieve a good social standing, we would all need to be linked in. What would it do to identity theft? Are real interactions versus the digital marketplace more important?
Sources:
Agrawal, R. (2012). Facebook charging for messages isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Retrieved January 18, 2012 from http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/11/facebook-charging-for-messaging-isnt-as-crazy-as-it-sounds/
Shankar, V. (2012). Buffet charity lunch auction reaps record $3.46 million. Retrieved January 18, 2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-11/buffett-charity-lunch-auction-reaps-record-3-dot-46-million
The major trend in media development that sounded ridiculous to many when it first came out in December of last year was Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook charging a $1 for advertisers to send a message to their consumers and $100 per message to Mr. Zuckerberg himself. This approach to advertisement is unique in that it appeals to individuals not consumers. Ads no longer need to have neither a broad appeal nor a special group cater to, but could be more responsive to individual interests and buying patterns. The $1 message will not be lost in spam folders and likely, the user will click on the message to read its contents. However, this seems to be a slippery slope; if advertisers all move to use this approach, their efforts will become ineffective and compel recipients to move advertisements to the spam folder once again. On the other hand, if message costs were weighted differently to each individual, this could be a new way to make money on social capital.
Social credit scores such as political capital, friendship connections, social influence, and the like would determine the cost per message to be sent. As a student studying media psychology, I would be interested in comparing and contrasting how credit scores (financial history) and social credit scores (social influence, political capital, religious connections, friendship connections, etc.) would influence purchasing power and purchasing influence.
This type of information would give lenders a better barometer in lending practices. Citizens would participate in maintaining a good financial history and social reputation to increase their social and financial credit scores. However, this requirement would assume that to achieve a good social standing, we would all need to be linked in. What would it do to identity theft? Are real interactions versus the digital marketplace more important?
Sources:
Agrawal, R. (2012). Facebook charging for messages isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Retrieved January 18, 2012 from http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/11/facebook-charging-for-messaging-isnt-as-crazy-as-it-sounds/
Shankar, V. (2012). Buffet charity lunch auction reaps record $3.46 million. Retrieved January 18, 2012 from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-11/buffett-charity-lunch-auction-reaps-record-3-dot-46-million