Principle 4: Ego grows the Internet

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The Internet owes much of its growth to our ego-driven desires. Every online application that’s helped grow the Internet has supported, enhanced, and offered numerical comparisons of our popularity.

Home pages, blogs, podcasts, and social networks allow for expression of self—a means to grow our ego. But more importantly these tools let us know if anyone is listening and responding. Hit counters, page views, friends on MySpace, views of videos, and comments to our blog posts are all examples of ego-based measurements.

Think about your own behavior. What did you do after you made your very first post to a discussion group? You didn’t just post and walk away. You waited a while and then looked back—maybe multiple times in a single day. You wanted someone to validate your worth. Did anyone care about what you wrote? A lack of validation of our significance is why so many blogs die. Why write anything if nobody’s going to read it? But with continued validation touch points, like blog comments and increased traffic numbers, we’re eager to still produce content for no money. For many, online validation is the only ego-supporting currency we need.

Established media institutions like TV networks and newspapers were not the first to recognize the value of new media. They didn’t need it. They already had promotion and distribution channels in place. But individuals didn’t, and in minutes, with little to no cash outlay, new media afforded the average individual the means of having a distribution channel just to promote themselves.

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