Mason Fok

I think 99% of the problem here is actually the same thing that made Google the success that it is today. Facebook and Twitter do not allow professionals such as Realtors to communicate on there platforms within the context required for the messages to be considered information and not spam. I am talking about "Context"! Google won over millions of people by providing the right Ads (and results) to the right visitor. If I go to Google and search for "friends" the last thing that I want to see is a heap of content that has very little to nothing to do with what I signed on for. It still maybe considered content to someone, to me it is nothing but spam and a waist of my time. As content becomes more and more a commodity that anyone can get their hands on the value of that content becomes connected specifically within the experience and context with which it is presented. Both Facebook and Twitter have a very specific context, people use them to connect with old friends and see how many kids their first love now drives to school. That context is miles away from "Look at this, It is my new open house". I have thought long about this problem and saw it coming some time ago. It was then that I started work on a tool that can be used to provide the much needed context for micro-blogs and social platforms that professionals need. Not to sound to spamish myself, I hope to overcome this context and experience issue with a new tool within the next few weeks. If this interests you, then please take a look at http://www.masonfok.com and if you would like to be notified of this tools release please register your email for the newsletter. I had planned to unveil this solution in a few weeks time. However, Kris's fantastic article on what is happening within social networking online and the issues it presents was to relevant to ignore.

I think there are two reasons why copyright online is not respected. 1. The Internet is largely free. When something is free it rarely has the respect of its true value. If you purchased a book for $500 you can bet that you will care for it and read every page, the same is not always true for content freely available for download from the Internet. 2. People will spread any message but… Articles about how to best cut the hair of your pet ant is something someone will spread and breach copyright rules. However, articles that educate people to copyright issues are not shared as that underlying uncertainty of “is it right or not right” triggers before the user goes annoying someone that talks about potential litigation. This results in more people learning about hair cuts for ants then that of copyright issues.