Prosumers and their impact

Futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler coined the word “prosumer” to describe people who consume what they themselves produce. Prosuming takes forms as varied as helping in a fund raiser or writing a shareware program. One tribe of prosumers who have exploded in the last four or five years have been in the web world of social media. The likes of MySpace, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Orkut are all products of the prosumer economy. Social Networks offer people new ways to meet and exchange information, forge alliances and relationships, exchange pictures and music, make friends, share ideas and activities. All of us contribute to this economy by checking upon each other on social networks and expressing our views on blogs

Will prosumers run the world? They might not. But, as shown by the tremendous impact of Linux, (which originated from the unpaid work of Torvalds and a large network of prosumer programmers) on the business world, they are going to shape the emerging economy.

What about the profit potential of the Social Sites? Facebook has been valued at $15 Billion courtesy the Microsoft stake, Google bought Youtube for $1.65 Billion, NewsCorp bought MySpace for $588 Million. Then, you have tech entrepreneurs like Marc Andreeson, backing new sites like Ning. In spite of the Venture funds racing to fund them, the business plans of most of these sites are hazy. Even biggies like MySpace and Facebook are struggling to figure out their revenue streams apart from online ads.

Will the Social Networks bubble bust like the .Com bust? Yes, it might, but the impact of social media on individuals, society and business will only grow!