The Creative Economy –leading edge PSYOP or a fad?

 

You often hear the expression “follow the money”. In case you are interested this goes all the way back to the movie All The President’s Men and meant you can figure out political corruption by analyzing money transfers.

 

Venture capitalists (VCs) are considered among the 21^st century’s major money sources. According to the July 12 NY Times (see: https://nyti.ms/3i5wgjj, which is a photo source), “The online influencer culture is starting to draw serioblogus interest from big venture capital firms. But the real money could be in digital tools, not the personalities.”

 

The VCs are creating an investment boom in the ‘so-called creator or influencer economy’.

The creator economy is named for social media ‘creators’ who are people that monetize their on line persona. I should point out the creators are generally young (under 30?) and digital natives – meaning they grew up with high speed technology.

 

The article continues “The creator economy, which provides digital tools to influencers and helps them run their businesses, is a huge, largely unexplored market.”  VCs have reportedly invested $2 billion into 50 creator-focused startups so far this year.

 

Two companies mentioned as provided tools are Dispo and Poparazzi.

Dispo is a photo staring ap which is considered a rival to Instagram.

Dispo as an invite-only picture sharing ap and you can learn more about it at:https://cnb.cx/3yR4z4A

 

Poparazzi (http://www.poparazzi.com/) is another tool mentioned and it is an app that mimics the concept of paparazzi because it is a photo sharing ap that encourages the network of friends to share photos among the group. The Apple App store features it here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/poparazzi/id1513680970 (also a photo source)

 

Another tool, Sub-stack (https://substack.com/) allows writers to set up paid subscriptions to newsletters. It also provides authods with an on line platform that can provide analytics, and design tools.

 

The TikTok platform is generally given credit for jump starting the creative economy and contines to be the most popular downloaded ap (see: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-continues-to-hold-its-position-at-the-top-of-the-monthly-app-downlo/601414/, which is another photo source).

 

The implications for PSYOPers is that new tools can help turn anyone into an online personality. This means that the on-line influence playing field is continuing to level and that adversaries can be expected to mount effective influence campaigns with very limited budgets.