Wednesday 29 October 2008

The Echo Chamber: is it a sound idea?

Via IP Marketing E-News comes a piece in TechCrunch by Brian Solis (FutureWorks PR), "During Tough Times, The Echo Chamber Can Be Your Best Friend". IP Marketing E-News's synopsis runs:

"Exactly what is the echo chamber? It’s the first 16% on the left-hand side of the bell curve of ‘influence and adoption’ in technology marketing, ... the first 2.5% being 'innovators,’ and the next 13.5% being ‘early adopters.’ Traditionally, the term echo chamber describes a group of media outlets that tend to parrot each other's reports. In the online world, where much early marketing is done, the expression has expanded to refer to blogs that write about the views of other blogs, echoing the same information back and forth. It is this process -- resulting in highly viral marketing ....

“If you dissect the art and science of technology marketing using a car as a simple metaphor, your product serves as the chassis, your cash as the fuel, Social Media, Interactive/Web, Sales, SEO, and PR as the accelerator, marketing strategy and execution as the gears, RPMs as a market indicator for listening and responding, the speedometer to convey inertia, and you … sitting in the driver’s seat, steering and controlling the entire operation,” says Solis. “Marketing to the echo chamber ... is how you get that car rolling, starting everything in first gear.” Innovators and early adopters ... “are global citizens and do not solely reside in Silicon Valley.

Remember: reporters, bloggers and online tastemakers (aka trendsetters) who spotlight innovation can send tens of thousands of [prospects] to you almost instantly. When done right, the echo chamber can generate real world interest and support”.

This piece seems to me to highlight a major difference in attitude between US and European innovators. The former are both more adept at using the media and more inclined to respond to its use by others, while the latter are plainly less effective at setting up waves of echoed information and somewhere between cautious and downright sceptical in their responses.

Right: in Europe, Echo is associated by many with the tragic tale of Narcissus in Greek mythology

Perhaps this is one explanation of US dominance in so many areas of technology marketing and exploitation.

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