Editor’s Letter – M2 May/June 2021

Wistfully looking back over the last 16 years does make me feel like an old man, but it is none-the-less an interesting exercise in taking stock of how much things keep changing. I was going to say ‘evolving’ but that would imply a state of improvement across the board. Still, it does feel like we have been through a period of time that would make the industrial revolution feel unproductive.

Around the same time that M2 launched, Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005) and Twitter (2006) also entered the world. You would have been laughed at if back then you had suggested that companies like these would redefine the media landscape and the way that we connected with each other and how brands connected with us and even how we voted. So ubiquitous is this “big tech” presence that it is hard to appreciate just how pervasive it is, but with the luxury of hindsight and being able to compare 2005 with 2021 in terms of social presence is striking.

The in-between years are an accelerating blur (cue movie montage of Kardashians, Arab Spring, Russians, Trump, Cancel Culture, QAnon). Not all of it is bad of course, it just is what it is. I wonder what startups are being formed now that are going to shape the next 16 years. In the meantime, enjoy issue 182 of M2 Magazine. Human curated, no AI, no algorithms and no election manipulation, I am pretty sure.