The Digital State, according to Greg Grimmer

Simon Pont recently launched his new book ‘Digital State: How the internet is changing everything‘, and Newsline regular Greg Grimmer has contributed. So what exactly does he say the Digital State is?

The digital age was supposed to set us free. The digital age was supposed to be an enlightened age. The Digital State was supposed to be a global, boundary free, utopia where all our dreams were realised, our work was compressed and our leisure time enhanced.

But now we find ourselves prisoners to our own digital devices. This is the Digital State we are in.

This excerpt will take you on a journey. It starts with the wonder and awe of our early exploration into the new fangled digital world, a cornucopia of choice that was first presented to us as the ‘WorldWideWeb’.

From happy beginnings, we then entered into ‘The Channel of Tyranny’, where our every waking hour is dominated by the plethora of digital screens in our domain. Perhaps finally we are ready to cross these badlands, begin a path to enlightenment, where we can wrestle control again of our lives, and control rather than be controlled by the Digital State.

WONDER AND AWE

Those of us that will never be able to claim the moniker of ‘Digital Natives’ will always have one over on those to whom the internet was just another part of the learning process.

Trigonometry – check,
Conjugating Latin verbs – check,
Remembering numerous online passwords – check,
Managing multiple relationships via various social networking sites – check.

For anyone over the age of twenty-one in 1994, the learning process of email, the information superhighway, mobile phones and the rest of the technology charge that greeted the end of the last millennium provided a test not experienced by any previous adult generation.

However, to be fair to us ‘Digital Immigrants’, we have acted more with the hope of the arrivals at Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century, than refusniks being transported to a hostile new land.

The awe and wonder provided by the new digital devices quickly sees uptake from virtually every audience. Gladwell’s much lauded ‘Tipping Point’ is arriving faster and at lower penetration levels with every next generation of digital device.

Mobile penetration hit 20%, then 80%, in a small matter of twenty-four months, broadband speeds became the prevalent internet modus operandi in an even shorter space of time, and the growth of tablets/smartphones/netbooks will out pace even that phenomenon.

We seem (especially here in the UK) to embrace every aspect of the new Digital State. Our Napoleonic status as a nation of shopkeepers has been replaced by a new found global leadership as a nation of e-shoppers.

Every possible form of commerce (Business-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business) is not only utilised, but also greeted with incredulous outrage if a transaction cannot be completed in a completely virtual state.

‘Clicks and mortar?’ No thanks.

‘Click and Oughta be with me in a max of 24 hours’ – this has become the UK consumer’s maxim to prospective online retailers.

So the internet was supposed to encourage freedom, the proliferation of brands and consumer choice? The actuality is that it is dominated by hegemony of super brands – Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, EBay, Twitter. The web is increasingly offering consumers a parsimonious choice of suppliers.

We have a paucity of choice…

in search,
in video,
in social,
in micro blogging,
in auctions,
in retail,
in phones,
in operating systems.

There seems to be an unbreakable trend in the virtual world that only one brand can survive in any one sector, and perhaps even more interestingly, it is then incredibly difficulty for that brand to transfer its dominance to another sector. Perhaps the best example of this was eBay’s investment into Skype (albeit where they did make a profit on their investment). Add to that the failure of Google Video, under that brand name, before its purchase and subsequent investment in You Tube.

Google should, of course, be applauded for managing to transfer their search technology to all devices, but it surely is the consumer’s prior experience with the brand and not the bespoke product that has driven this?

Some work I did previously, many thousands of moons ago in the digital world (about 2006). I had a theory about social networking sites. This theory was that they had a half-life, a bit like a piece of radioactive waste.

The theory stood up quite well for a season of conference speeches, as Friends Reunited, Bebo, Second Life (I like to think my ‘Get yourself a first life’ comment helped this particular site’s demise) and even the mighty MySpace lost favour with their previously fanatical users.

Then along came Facebook, and I needed another theory (or a longer time span to judge it by). However, as The Social Network (2010) was going big and hitting Hollywood, the latest piece of mass-owned technology (geo-tagging on smart phones) was spawning a number of threats to even Facebook.

Gowalla, Rummble, Foursquare (and numerous other location based services) have been gaining traction by getting users to ‘check in’ their location via their smart phones in order to let their friends, fans or mere digital acquaintances know their whereabouts.

But back to the premise the internet was supposed to encourage freedom, proliferation of brands and consumer choice. This hegemony of super brands – Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Twitter et al seem to have set the pattern for the whole state of digital.

Forget Chris Anderson’s long tail. Consumer herd mentality has meant that the internet is like a docked Weimaraner – nothing wagging here except tongues in Mountain View.

COMPETITION

Ten Newsline readers are being given the chance to win a signed sopy of Simon’s new book. To enter, simply tweet @mediatelgroup, followed by the hashtag #digitalstate.