I was inspired to continue the conversation that Chris Brogan started on his blog a couple of days ago. Chris' post begins:

"Pepsi doesn’t want to talk with a few hundred people at a time, do they? It’s just that all these businesses have built huge platforms, huge sales funnels, huge marketplaces, and I think what social software is setting us up for are cafe-shaped conversations."

Which is funny, because apparently Pepsi does want to talk to a few hundred people, including Chris Brogan. Why? Because Pepsi knows that cafe conversations are what is driving the social web. And they know that the conversations that Chris Brogan have are with larger groups of people, and that they tend to get repeated in other cafe's around the social web.

The Disruption in the Music Industry session at Web 2.0 Expo NY was one I wanted to make sure I attended.

There is a lot of buzz these days about social media. Everyone's trying to figure it out. There are some who understand it, and some who might be missing the mark. The "web" is quickly, and deservedly, becoming a science unto itself. The web is still perceived by the majrity as a platform. A medium. An "it". When, as I observe it to be, the web is much more, it's "where," "when," "how," and "why." And most importantly "who." My friend Stowe Boyd refers to practitioners of social media as "the people formerly known as the audience" - a term I am quite fond of. In general, this is a concept that the world of marketing communications has yet to catch on to.

Thoughts have of late been percolating in my mind. Thoughts about how the internet has impacted society, what it's meant so far and where all of this may be heading. The social web has had enormous impact on everything from our social lives, to our professional lives, to how we discover, purchase and discuss products and services. Personally, I love the impact the social web has had on my life, my career and the personal and professional interactions I have. I feel like as a society, prior to the social web, we tended to compartmentalize our lives. There was the "work me" the "social me" the "parent me" and so on. The social web has broken down barriers and given us permission to be human.