When creators, culture and community commerce collide

Finally, commerce and social are coming together, although to much less a degree than marketing teams who talk up “brand communities” would like you to think. In all but a few cases, “community” here is just the marketing language used to describe a microbrand’s niche Instagram fandom. To me “community” implies users regularly engaging with each ot... See more

The best consumer platforms started as entertainment and scaled into new classes of work: streamers on Twitch, influencers on Instagram and retailers on Shopify.

Let’s recap: as content creation and distribution tends to infinity, community emerges as true internet-native media. Community is an exercise in cultural production, and communities filter content proliferate a specific point of view. The role of the community, then, is to create and curate cultural artifacts in-line with their collective point of... See more

In a world where many consumer platforms are distributing content primarily through online channels, creators and communities hold tremendous power in distribution through social platforms. They are our curators* in an increasingly noisy online experience. At the same time, consumer preferences are shifting to online experiences that are more immer... See more

When we look back over the past 100 years, traditional commerce (and the culture it indirectly endorsed) was primarily curated by a single person’s point-of-view. Even when commerce moved online, to places like Amazon or Farfetch, retailers still controlled the types of things consumers purchased. Online commerce didn’t innovate a new shopping expe... See more