WESTPORT, Connecticut, January 8 /PRNewswire/ --

- "Content Nation" Author John Blossom Sees a New Shape to Human
Civilization Emerging and Outlines New Imperatives for Businesses and
Societies Around the World

The explosion in electronic publishing by individuals and enterprises
using social media and social networking tools is fundamentally changing how
people relate to each other in their personal, business and community lives,
according to a newly released book by well-known publishing and information
industry analyst John Blossom.

Social media include Web 2.0-enabled self-publishing social networking
forums that create unprecedented information sharing and collaborative links
among vast self-organizing online communities.

Blossom's "Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes
Our Work, Our Lives and Our Future" (Wiley; January 2009) weaves together
historical perspectives, case studies from around the world and practical
tips that illustrate how to succeed in business, politics and society using
social media and social networking.

The book also explores how a future shaped by social media's
non-hierarchical information flow will alter human civilizations. "Content
Nation" integrates input from social networking activists connected through a
wiki site managed by Blossom (www.contentnation.com), the founder and
president of content industry research and executive consulting firm Shore
Communications Inc. (http://shore.com).

The book is available now through online retailers, in bookstores and in
draft form on Blossom's Content Nation social networking Web site.

"'Content Nation' will help its readers understand the immediate impact
of social networking publishing tools such as weblogs, wikis, and popular
social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn so that they
can survive and thrive in challenging times," Blossom says.

"But 'Content Nation' also helps people to understand how these tools are
challenging many of the fundamental assumptions that have held together human
societies. Social media's importance and impact in its current early stages
must be measured not just against the backdrop of traditional electronic
media but also in comparison to how people have communicated throughout human
history. Social media and social networking are more than a challenge to
today's institutions -- they have the potential to change the very DNA of
human society."

Early signs are there, Blossom says, pointing to how companies are
redefining their marketing strategies to deal with the virtually limitless
role of bloggers and other bottom-up influencers, and in the success the
Barack Obama presidential campaign enjoyed in last year's election through
its online network building.

In 2009, Blossom says, "Social media and social networking will move
front and center as a prime concern in business, politics, government, the
arts and any number of other arenas. Social media is not a trend or fad; it
is a realignment of the essential tools of human communication that is giving
new power to individuals and institutions to change the world."

Many existing hierarchies are being challenged, Blossom says, with the
publishing industry the most immediate and obvious example.

"The days of exclusively top-down decision making about what gets
published or reported are over. Information and news are now communicated
horizontally from one peer to another. Individual information consumers are
able to add value through analysis, with minimal barriers to participation.
Those who know how to take advantage of these developments will succeed where
others more tied to traditional publishing are now failing.

"If you're on the sidelines of social media and social networking, your
future is not bright," Blossom says. "Adapting to the new imperatives can
help people not only to survive but to thrive in exciting new ways that are
now beginning to unfold on a nation-like scale. The world is becoming a
nation of publishers and millions are ready to be citizens of Content
Nation."

(Note: quotes in this news release are not taken from the book. Please
visit www.contentnation.com for the text.)

John Blossom is available for interviews and speaking engagements. He
will be a keynote presenter at this month's InfoVision conference in
Bangalore, India (www.infovision.org.in/2009).

MEDIA CONTACT

    John Buckman
    Buckman Communications for Shore Communications
    +1-412-381-2900
    jbuckman@buckman.biz