A universe of choices

This morning I started to read a bit more of Jeff Jarvis's bestseller What would GOOGLE do? For an old timer of a journalist reading this book  makes me start to think. For a long time I have been trying to understand why media companies are acting as they do. I myself was a journalist novise of the 90´ties. I was part of a television magazine that was all about distributing to the mass market audience.

            At first, ratings were low, but hope and aim always up. And after a while this attitude seemed to work. We were broadcasting to approximately half a million viewers every week. Being a journalist in an ambitious atmosphere hungry for more ratings for that one program, makes one wonder why in heavens name media companies have a strategy of dividing their prey into pieces. But they do indeed. Their mantra seems to be: Small is good. Point being: Users have discovered the multitude of opportunities on the internet, companies within media (and others….!!) need to correspond with users where they are. And people are everywhere. Still there are some niches which seems to bring more people together than others. Platforms enables the companies to create such a strategy.

            Back to what I was wondering today as I was reading Jarvis's book.  I got a feeling of how billions of possible choices not necessarily make people capeable to take the right choices. What scenarios of the 90's predicted “In the future, it will be difficult to choose between all choices” has indeed become a reality. There is a new universe with stars and planets, but there is this human belief  - maybe an arrogant belief - that we will be able to make a full use of this universe.

Well, I don´t think so. 

The truth is that we need guids, maps in this universe, as in all others. We needs to find ways to limit our personal universes. So to day I have startet my search for great guides. I start with Jeff Jarvis and What would Google do? A great guide as a starter.