Online gift economies can easily sound like a load of kool-aid fulled, hippy nonsense. But in fact, it's how we all operate day-to-day in the real world. We give and expect to get back - but only at an unspecified future date. Think regular drinking pals who don't count the rounds too closely because they know it all evens out in the long term. By buying the beers when you've just been paid you are saving up a few gratis ales for when money is tight. And we all know what happens to people who don't get their round in. Eventually, they get thirsty. The difference is that gift economies used to be restricted to tight social units such as the family, close friends or neighbours. Now the gift dynamic is writ large across the world. Networked media has created millions of small groups who are brought together by common interest but remain geographic strangers. The surprise, however, is that our natural propensity to give-and-take translates into these online cliques and makes them tick. If you link to the article I have been working on today, I'll be inclined to point at your post tomorrow. If you add my photos to your montage and give me a name check, I'll recommend your artwork to my friends. If you add my video to your delicious feed, I'll introduce you to someone helpful. If you add a little juice to my P2P project, I'll make sure you are invited to that cool new event. If you praise me, I'll defend you when your name is being dragged through the mud. Through these small favours, back-pats, gestures, nods and winks, the strands of social networks are drawn together. Groups unite and alliances form. There's nothing new here. It's as old as the hills in fact. But when magnified through the distributed techno-bobbins that we have in our homes and on our persons, those small gestures and contributions grow into market forces that disrupt whole industries, causing big headaches for MegaCorps. Think Skype's attack on the telecomms biz, McCool competing with enterprise tech, Fanning's assault on music or BitTorrent's steady disruption of the studios. All powerful market forces that kick-off with a small gift. So how do brands work in such environments, where people want a favour not a fiver, a thumbs-up not a backhander? Well, it's fair to say that advertising in its current form won't cut it. In gift economies advertising is the equivalent of having dinner at your friend's house and leaving £50 on the way out, as the wonderfully hirsuite Yochai Benkler notes in this TED talk. It feels a bit grubby. Gift economies work because someone is given a voice, made to look smart, introduced to a new friend, when their style is praised, their art is pimped, a door is opened or some light is thrown on a problem. But just like the real world you have to give before you get and the payback is in the long-term. Which makes it a difficult corporate investment to justify. Especially while the short-term option of buying some 'loyalty' through media remains. However, as the gift economy grows and challenges new markets, brands that can't operate in this forum might find themselves getting thirsty as those beers start to dry up. Whose round is it again?
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