Information vs. Communication or Information + Communication

Yesterday in class, we talked about control and how the U.S. is different than communist China because our government doesn't try to control the internet, our economy does. This actually makes a lot of sense because brands and labels would rather have you online buying their product rather than socializing with your friends. I however would disagree on whether it's one or the other thing battling to be most prominent on the internet. I think actually brands have capitalized on the fact that the majority of the world's population uses the internet for communication. They have seen the trends of social networks and rather than fighting to be top dog, they have merged.

There are more than thousands of brands on Facebook and Twitter. The brands use the social networks differently in order to market their brand and image properly. The brands use Facebook to hold photo contest like Johnson & Johnson, give away coupons like Palm Beach Tan, and encourage customer feedback on a one to one basis like Nintendo - article courtesy of Mashable. The brands use Twitter to provide instant help with technical problems like The Home Depot, to promote new products like Starbucks, and to engage immediate customer response like the upcoming movie 30 Minutes or Less - article courtesy of Search Engine Journal.

So, back to what we were discussing in class yesterday about corporations trying to take over the communication aspect of the internet, I think they already have and the businesses that haven't are catching up quickly. I think they are facing some issues while trying to get consumer information to us via communication. Yesterday, for a second, we talked about hate speech and how that is still technically respected by the First Amendment, but how there is a fine line between hate speech and libel/defamation. Earlier this year Forever 21 was confronted with this problem of determining what someone could say about their brand when they tried to go after WTForever21, a blog about the negatives of Forever 21 stores. An article from ABC News, "Forever 21 Threatens Blogger With Lawsuit for WTForever21 Site," said that the corporation was planning on taking the blogger to court, but was advised against it due to the amount of negative publicity they got as a result of the lawsuit.

So it's true that brands still haven't found a way to get us to stop badmouthing their product and they realize that bad publicity - especially on the Internet - lives up to its name of being "viral." But I think they have seen how much we rely on the Internet for socialization and rather than make it information vs. communication, they have seen ways to merge the two.