The frequent mention of market dominance is when a brand becomes a verb.
Xerox that. Get a Band-Aid.
Of course, that has clearly followed online.
Google that. Digg that – though not Digg me. Facebook me; the confluence of Twitter and tweet and twittering. You don’t LinkedIn someone, which might relate to how Facebook could crush its professional conterpart if it would only offer a more restricitve and private version of a person’s Facebook profile for colleages.
Can this come to news media?
A subject could probably get TechCrunched – if covered by the popular Silicon Valley blog. (Could we peer into the future and see Delaware Valley region tech businesses getting Technically Philly-ed?)
Before his death, Tim Russert was rising in prominence and fame for his grilling of leaders and legislators. In the future, could have been Russerting his guests?
It seems a silly path in vanity, but I think this is a lesson in the power of personality over person – it’s not who you are or what you can prove, but what you can show and say.
CNN’s ratings are slipping in comparison to booming audience figures for opinion-heavy and personality-driving MSNBC and Fox News.
I don’t think anyone’s doubting that news is going to need an increasingly character-basis to bring in the masses.
Whether the brands will matter enough to develop verb-use, we’ll have to see.