I call it Engagism, you call it "Communitainment"

Let's NOT call the whole thing off.

Piper Jaffray, the enormous investment and banking behemouth, recently came out with a report entitled "The User Revolution." In it, they argue that through the Internet, the activities of community building, communications and entertainment have merged, creating this new area of "communitainment". This trend, according to Piper Jaffray, involves consumers moving communication beyond the exchange of information to the exchange of content, ideas and entertainment in an online social context.

Perhaps most important, they argue that Usites (i.e., sites where users can provide content) are "... the Internet's democratized version of the reality TV trend with users in control of content creation." The point here is that "communitainment" is less about shifting traffic patters and ad buys and more about the way consumers view content and information as a free-flowing part of the communications spectrum in which they can and should be directly involved.

The smart folks at Piper Jaffray (hey, since they agree with me, they're smart), seem to recognize what so many businesses must -- in order to be successful in the next several decades, we must understand that our audience, whether consumers, employees, advocates or policy makers, expect to engage in a meaningful and substantive way in the issues that matter most to them.

And then, it's up to us to help them find ways to do just that.

More information on the Piper Jaffrey report here
Great article on this report here