DogBytes

The Church of the Customer, one of my favorite blogs (written by the folks that wrote Citizen Marketer - you know the book you see in every airport bookstore) had a post about the way that MTV is responding to the threat of social media.  The network that has defined cool since the early 80's is responding to the threat of user generated content by.....facilitating a tremendous amount of user generated content.  They know they are no longer in charge.  The kids are, and they need to open up if they are still going to steer the ship.

According to Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba (the authors),

This is exactly how big media companies should fight the third-party sites; not with lawyers but with vast amounts of free content, tools to play with that content and vast new forms of particpation. To out-do YouTube, big media should be encouraging joint ownership of content. That'll help build loyalty, discover trends and uncover new talent. Besides, there's more important work to do than send hundreds of take-down notices to YouTube and MySpace every week.

Traditional publishers and event organizers should take this to heart.  You cannot stop the storm - the masses are participating.  How are you going to steer your ship through this sea change?