May 10th, 2008
The World is Not Flat and Neither is the Social Web
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Quick Summary: I’m starting a new series on why the social web is not flat and why it’s a good thing.
It has been fashionable for a while now to describe the world as ‘globalized’. Ever since Thomas Friedman’s ode to globalization, ‘The World is Flat’, became a runaway bestseller in 2005, it has also become fashionable to describe the world as ‘flat’. Indians, in particular, have a special fondness for Friedman’s book because Friedman is enamored with the Indian IT industry and the title was derived from a statement by Nandan Nilekani, the former CEO of Infosys.
While the ‘world is flat’ metaphor has been much abused over the last three years, even Friedman’s original argument (that historical, regional and geographical divisions have become irrelevant in a global marketplace where all companies and countries have a level playing field) is quite exaggerated.
In a series of posts written over the next few weeks, I’ll establish that the world is not truly globalized, but ’semi-globalized’ (as Pankaj Ghemawat describes it in ‘Redefining Global Strategy’) or ‘rough-correlated’ (a term used by Eric Beinhocker in ‘The Origin of Wealth’).
In fact, not only will I establish that the world is not flat, I’ll also prove that the internet in general and the social web in particular is not flat either. This is an important argument because Friedman’s ‘the world is flat’ theses is based on the premise that information technology in general and the internet in particular has flattened the world.
Finally, I’ll establish that it’s a good thing that the social web (and the world) is not entirely flat, because it allows entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities, for instance, to create a uniquely Indian social network or build a social media outsourcing business.
Watch out for more posts in this series under a new category called ‘Flat or Not’.
This is quite interesting, I’ll be following your studies, this is also something I’ve been mulling: internet has’t really brought “everyone” together. Instead, it has made some divisions even wider..
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Gaurav would look forward to your posts on this.
I believe that Flat is a misnormer of sorts and there is still a vast gap in what we are achieving today with internet and what it can do to our lives….
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Gaurav, those who of us in the thick of it know this fact (that it’s not flat at all) so well that “The World is Flat” is but romanticizing a notion—particularly for an Indian (just because Mr Friedman has some nice stories about India; I like it in particular because my school buddy’s gaming company Dhruva has a mention, but I digress). Best sellers don’t necessarily mean they paint a true picture of the World—that’s too big a canvas for gross generalizations. (Da Vinci Code is a similar tangent.) Try the energy industry for example, and the theory just flies out the window.
IT industry in general may have had some lee-ways, but Internet and social (monetizing) web, in particular, is hung on to the long-tail. So not flat, rather hyperbolic.
Would you still want to go through the effort of proving that it’s not flat?
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well, I commented on your previous post on social media outsourcing, but didn’t get any follow up by any other visitor..
let, me know whether you agre/disagree or wat?
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[…] In this post, however, I will focus on the geographical split and compare the social technographics profiles for USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China to kick off my series on how the social web is not flat. […]
First, apologies to all for not replying earlier.
@Chetan I read the two posts you have linked to. A-listers, the power law and the long tail are all interesting aspects of social media but my focus is quite different. In the ‘Flat or Not’ series, I’ll be basically looking at how internet in general, and social media in particular, is developing differently in different parts of the world. My post comparing the social technographics profile of USA/ Europe with Japan/ Metro China is perhaps a good example of what you can expect in this series.
@Medea Yes, part of my endeavor in the series will be to study why social technologies can overcome some (cultural and economic) differences, but not others.
@Amit Yes, part of the endevor in the series will be to study the bottlenecks which stop some countries from fully benefiting from the internet.
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[…] have one or two ideaslivers of my own. Social Media Outsourcing may be one. The idea that “the social web is not flat” may be […]