Introduction - It's a People-Driven Economy

(EN: There's a great deal of aggrandizement going on in the introduction - I'm going to let it pass without further remark.)

The author portrays social economics as a "massive socioeconomic shift" and cites the enormous size of the social media world as something that is simply too large for businesses to ignore or neglect. He implies that those who fail to "do" social media will become extinct.

He further claims that mass-media advertising has lost its position as the chief method of influencing the marketplace, eclipsed by personal recommendation that everyday people make on the Internet. Social media on the Internet is now taking its place, and by virtue of the mobile platform it is omnipresent.

For example, if a new father notices that 14 of his closes friends have purchased the same model of baby seat and they all express glowing opinions of it, chances are that other manufacturers have little chance of changing his mind. Chances are he will not feel the need to do any further research at all.

In that sense, manufacturers advertising firms no longer have the ability to dominate public opinion by controlling the information that people can obtain. There are many other sources, and most of them are deemed more reliable and trustworthy.

This is a dramatic change, and places the market at the brink of a "newer and brighter world for consumers" and one in which commercial interests are going to have to make some significant adjustments.