An Army of Davids

“In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them if front of 1 billion people…(that) remarkable achievement was not in anyone’s 10 year plan…Ten years ago, anyone silly enough to trumpet the above…as a vision of the near future would have been confronted by the evidence. There wasn’t enough money in all the investment firms in the entire world to fund such a cornucopia. The success of the Web at this scale was impossible.” (Kevin Kelly, Wired Magazine, 2003 – as quoted in “An Army of Davids,” by Glenn Reynolds.

Kelly goes on to say that the Web could not have been built by government or industry. Only the “…power of millions of amateurs dong things because they wanted to do them, not because they were told to. It was an army of Davids, doing what Goliaths never could have managed (p. 258).

Reynolds book is full of juicy tidbits like this which illustrate his basic theme, that power has shifted on the medial landscape. Amateurs covering events from the inside are changing the way big media covers events from the outside. This may seem obvious, but Reynolds does a nice job providing examples from many angles. I won’t quote it anymore. You can read it for yourself.

Here are some ideas the book triggered for me:

• People want to be seen AND heard – We recently did research among our most loyal customers. Among other things, they told us that they want to be more Visible – they want to BE someone in our world. They want other people to know that they are BIG fans. It seems that these feelings are not unique to our customers. This is human nature.
• Star systems are crumbling – It’s all about the “Long Tale” these days. (See this excerpt from Wikipedia: As Chris Anderson (Wired Magazine) argued that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough. Examples of such mega-stores include the online retailer Amazon.com and the online video rental service Netflix. The Long Tail is a potential market and, as the examples illustrate, successfully tapping in to that long tail market is often enabled by the distribution and sales channel opportunities the Internet creates. We’ve discovered that we have more fans outside our home state (who never go to games) then we have inside our home state. And now – with our Web site – we have a “store” through which we can reach these folks. Very exciting.
• Video games – are immitating life? – EA Sports just announced a game called Head Coach where players can draft their own team, motivate their players, negotiate salaries, etc. They can already play the game themselves without professional assistance. What happens when people would rather play sports-themed video games than watch sports on TV? Hey, Hollywood actors are being replaced by animations. Why not NFL players? It would certainly be cheaper for owners that way. You never know.
• Big media is in decline – or at least it’s changing. This seems obvious, but the implications of User Generated Content and social medial are astounding.
• Blogs are the next coffee house – this is my hope, anyway. With the resounding popularity of myspace and blogging too – I’m guessing that people will join multiple communities or groups on-line, depending on themes. I’m also guessing that people might have multiple blogs (if they cannot reconcile all their multiple personalities inside one stream of conciousness). I know that’s been tough for me.

David, of course, did not rely on his own strength. He was a man whose faith in God enabled him to face defeat the giant, Goliath, even while his brothers were afraid. Imagine a world in which there are whole armies of men with such faith! Certainly that would change the media landscape