False economy What’s in it for me? Understand what makes the

There is an economy behind spreading web-
related myths.
Have you ever had the feeling that, whenever 
there is a new fad, it’s all you hear about? That 
businesses, books, and media all jump onto the 
bandwagon? Well, you may be right: there’s an 
entire system used to spread web-related 
trends.
The myth circle often begins with some new 
online platforms that are being hyped by the 
media and self-proclaimed cyber fans and 
experts. Let’s look at Twitter as an example.
Once it has been created and successfully 
hyped, marketers will quickly come to 
understand the technology and tell their clients 
that they must establish a Twitter presence and 
invest in marketing campaigns on that platform.
Next, these marketers will create a buzzword out 
of the trend, thus further hyping it and exploiting 
the hype for profit. In this case, that buzz word is 
“social media.”
Next, industry analysts and consultants will 
repackage what marketers have said in order to 
resell it.
For example, they might sell a report on how 
using Twitter can benefit their clients’ 
businesses after having read blog posts written 
by marketers, essentially doing little more than 
repackaging information spread by marketers 
and then reselling it as their own work.
Finally, corporations will spend their money 
according to the advice given to them by 
analysts and consultants, thus completing the 
circle.
Big corporations have the marketing budget to 
allow them to invest big in a high quality, active 
Twitter account, if a consultant tells them to do 
so.
This in turn leads to more media reporting on 
Twitter, which then recreates a demand for the 
books and services of the marketers, who 
helped create the myth in the first place!
The problem with all this, of course, is that not all 
social media technologies turn into success 
stories; for each Twitter, there are hundreds of 
unsuccessful new tech companies. For example, 
do you remember FriendFeeds, that once upon 
a time was said to have the same potential as 
Facebook? No one else does either.