TIME magazine’s Person of the Year is YOU – in recognition of people being more in control of information than ever before thanks to social media sites. A consequence of the involvement of YOU is greater transparency. This is what people like about the social media sites, they have a voice and there is no gatekeeper silencing them.
Last week, before the TIME announcement, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, blogged about what radical transparency would look like at WIRED magazine. At the heart of radical transparency is YOU – readers being put at the heart of the magazine in pursuit of creating a better product. It respects the new YOU focused two-way publishing model of today compared to the one way approach of yesteryear.
I’d love to know what Australian magazine publishers make of Anderson’s post and the comments of others on his six tactics of transparent media. Newsagents ought to read it as well as they have a business model which does not connect with the era of YOU.