It's the conversation economy, stupid

Jan Van den Bergh e-mailed a brilliant piece on the conversation economy by David Armano.. Its brilliance lays in the introduction of some concepts that I would definitely include in a buzzword bingo. These are a few of the concepts to remember:

• Participating in conversations is not about crowdsourcing, it's about crowdmanaging
• Marketing is about facilitation, not about communication
• We designers should stop talking and start designing conversations. We should convert from marketers and information architects to conversation architects. Information is a one-way street, conversation isn't.
• Why is Twitter so hyped? Why all the fuss? I believe it's because Twitter has evolved from a simple service that initially allowed users to express mundane thoughts into a robust "conversation ecosystem."

Check out the image: it's a very interesting way to visualize the shift from a one-dimensional consumer towards a multi-faceted person who can have several roles in the communicative ecosystem: producer, customer, community member,... I would also add evangelist and opinion leader.

Link: Business Week - It's the conversation economy, stupid!