One of the most anticipated talks of Media 2.0 day was ‘The State of Now” with self-described ‘technology anthropologist” and entrepreneur Jeff Pulver. He certainly did not let the crowd down, with Tweets coming into Twitterslurp saying “Awesome session with Jeff Pulver about the real time internet. Listen. Connect. Share. Engage (@mizdiva)” and “We can follow rules, we can write rules, but the greatest impact is when we break rules. inspired by Jeff Pulver” (@milouness)

His talk centered on the differentiation between “old” media and “new” media-the fact that neither of those can really be said to exist in the age of social media and instant information, and that there is only “now” media. Rather than an “archival” internet, where people enter queries to find old information, the internet is transforming into a “real-time” internet that is changing and shifting along with its users. Those users, incidentally, are the heart and soul of this new way of looking at the internet. “People are discovering that their voices matter” Pulver said. “Individual voices are starting to be listened to.”

Those individual voices also now have more responsibility than ever before. Pulver shot down the idea of number of Facebook friends or twitter followers equating to influence, stating that “Your number of followers matters because it brings you attention, but what you do with that attention is what really matters” Pulver used internet phenomenon Susan Boyle as an example, citing her 8 days as a trending topic on twitter, 100 million YouTube views and appearance on Oprah as evidence of the power of the Internet.

Most important to realize, he said, is that everyone is now a brand. If you are on social media platforms, you are a brand, and the best thing you can do to use that influence-which he described as “like living in a comic book where everyone wakes up one day and has a super power”-is to support causes you really believe in. 

Pulver took the opportunity of Digital Capital Week to announce his newest venture which will do exactly that-connect people with the causes they believe in. JustCoz.org is a new platform launched by Pulver that allows users to use their social networking powers for good, spreading the word about their favorite causes by “donating a tweet” of publicity. This enables normal everyday people to use Pulver’s keys to true communication, and “Listen. Connect. Share. Engage.”