3 ms·

Why is it sad for social media? Seems like a social media success story to me. Also, there's a big difference between a publisher and a coach or agent or mana

• 6ren 16y ago
  He's signed to Island Records (I have to admit I just assumed his was signed to a major label, because of how he is presented, and I looked it up just now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber). It would be cool if social media replaced published. "Co-opted" is a technical term in disruption, meaning that the incumbents absorb the new approach instead of being replaced (i.e. disrupted) by them. At one time, there was a lot of talk about "disintermediation", where publishers and other middlemen between producer and consumer would disappear. That hasn't happened. The closest is iTunes and amazon, which disrupted retailers. Although there is a long-tail, where it presumably is happening, it seems that we still need filters. Even more so, people often want whatever everybody else wants, just because they want it. They want to fit in, conform, be part of something greater than themselves, rather than be themselves. This is possibly (I have no idea) most true of Mr. Biebers' primary demographic, tween girls. This popularity for its own sake is where centralized music publishers are strongest, and disintermediated serving of the long-tail is weakest.