As the social networking game goes niche, I believe that social networks will compete on the basis of values and trust -- stuff that is entirely psychological, not physical (we talked a bit about this previously in our report on superhero marketing). I do think, however, these social networks will benefit from creating an identity that serves as a symbol of the community's values -- a physical manifestation, an avatar, that represents the community.

Man, wouldn't it be great if in "the real world" our leaders served as symbols of our values?

Unfortunately, they don't.


But I do think this is a part of publishing beyond the matrix: creating an identity that serves as the symbol of the community's values. It is the role of the blogger, and of digital media publishers in general.

I think Kid Mercury and this site, KidMercuryBlog, are an experiment in this direction. InformedTrades, another site of ours that is the focus of much of our marketing efforts, has also been rebranded to be more identity-oriented, but in a safer way (not as "out there" and controversy-friendly as KidMercuryBlog).

This really changes the way businesses will compete. The battle is now entirely psychological. Alex Jones is right: there is a war on for your mind!