Social Media Has Changed Everything

This blog entry was posted on October 18, 2010.

The world has moved online. The rise of blogs, videos on YouTube, mingling on Facebook and tweeting has changed how we socialize. Marketing is now about relationships. Wikipedia and Google have made information and knowledge something that can be acquired on demand.

Communication is not for the elite. Barriers have been removed. Bloggers and tweeters are now the experts and the commentators on world events. Everyone has the opportunity to be heard. The web has made the world accessible and reachable no matter whom or where you are.

Boundaries have been removed. Social networking has expanded our opportunities to meet and interact from our local neighborhood to the international scene. Social media can take you anywhere.

Marketing and advertising are not about communicating with the masses. It is now about reaching and interacting with the individual. Niches and micro niches have replaced the large market channels.

Marketers use social media to build their brand and reputation, not to sell products. Your brand is what you represent, what you care about and your connection to others. You want to be the unique and persuasive voice in your market. Your goal is to create a cultural following.

Politicians are listening real time to what is being said. Feedback is instantaneous. Facebook, twitter and blogs are now the working tools of PR.

Today we live in a world where you can’t hide. The world has become more transparent… not less. There is no more lurking in the shadows. Social media shines a light on everything and everybody.

The online marketing landscape has changed tremendously in just the past few years. It is getting increasingly chaotic. The old style of controlling your market is dead. It is about interacting and conversing with your market at a grassroots level.

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How Cloud Computing Has Changed How Businesses Operate

This blog entry was posted on June 22, 2010.

The trend is moving away from having powerful office computers with in-office servers and toward cloud computing. In cloud computing, businesses use the Internet which is huge network of networks. Instead of having dedicated hardware with software loaded on each computer, cloud computing uses the Internet which is a vast shared computer network that businesses can tap into.

Subscription software or software-as-a-service (SaaS) will become the norm. Today most businesses have dedicated computers (desktops and notebooks) with individual copies of Microsoft Office purchased and loaded on each computer. These computers are connected with a network and server. This is not necessary with cloud computing.

1. Netbooks: With cloud computing, all that is necessary to operate a business are netbooks. These are cheaper, slimmed down laptops that have minimal or no data storage. These inexpensive computers are all that are required to run our office of the future (or even today).
2. Business Applications: Instead of individually owned copies of Microsoft Office, businesses can make use of the free SaaS alternative Google Docs. This is a web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and database software system. These web applications work from any Internet connected computer and data can be stored on Google’s servers or downloaded to the desktop.
3. Email: No need to run Office Outlook on your computer to send, receive and read email. The cloud alternative is Gmail or Yahoo email. You just need to sign-up for an account and you are off and going.
4. Computer Server: Need a server for your office? Why spend thousands of dollars for hardware and software? Just tap into the cloud and you are quickly up and going.

Cloud computing will save your business money, time and worry about obsolescence. Use the power of the cloud to power your business.

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What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 4

This blog entry was posted on May 19, 2010.

7 Impacts of these new technologies

1. New Credit Cards: Your cell phone or personal communication device will have replaced credit cards. You will be able to transfer cash or credit into your phone, be able to do one button purchases either in person or via the Internet. They will become your own personal automated teller for your banking transactions.
2. Hyper Local Web: The web will have moved from desktop to mobile. Based on where you are located, promotions and sales will stream into your mobile device as you are out shopping. Social networking and social media will become more local. 2020 will be the era of the localized web where most searches are for things within walking or driving distance.
3. Mobile Advertising will become the primary money source for Google replacing the current Adwords revenue model. Ads will be location-aware and be delivered based on proximity to your business. Consumers will be able to opt in with preferences and receive the types of ads they want. This will become the dominant marketing method for local businesses.
4. Telecommuting: The trend for working from home will continue to increase with virtual offices becoming the norm. It is estimated that by 2020 over 50-70% of the information workforce will telecommute rather than driving to the office. The impact will be an increased flexibility in hiring and recruiting talent without worry of location. There will be more work life control, but the line between work and personal time will blur.
5. Subscriptions: Software, business applications and even websites will move toward subscription based models. Purchasing software to loads onto your desktop will be obsolete. Instead with cloud computing, the norm will be to pay a nominal subscription for access to the software. Updates and maintenance fees will be rolled into the monthly expense making it easier for businesses to start up, shrink and expand with demand.
6. Digital Books: Printed books will almost completely be replaced by digital books that can be read in readers, smartphones and personal communication devices. Physical books will be more curiosities, gifts and keepsakes and not purchased as much for their content. Digital books will grow in popularity because of easy instant access to any book. Prices are expected to decline without the need for printing.
7. Hackers: These digital criminals or cyber-terrorists will still be attacking sites on the web. With so much of our infrastructure having moved to the web, hackers will be attacking the electrical grid, transit and police sites. Laws and technology will continue to strengthen against cybercrimes, but these criminals will continue to get more sophisticated and targeted.

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What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 3

This blog entry was posted on May 17, 2010.

Social Impact

By 2020 magazines and blogs will have merged, giving rise to the new Journalism or the mediasphere. This new journalism will be dominated by personal media and the large networks will need to harness personal media to become information integrators. The battle between privacy and transparency will have shifted strongly toward transparency. Social media will continue to grow and dominate life on the web.

New Journalism

Personal media in the form of blogs will continue to erode the market of the big media until by 2020, the major weekly publications won’t exist. What will flourish will be the information integrators. These are the businesses that monitor the mediasphere and quickly integrate new stories as reported by independent blog writers.

Gone will be the printed publications where the stories reported are already outdated by the time they are delivered. Digital publications delivered on tablet PCs or Kindle-like devices will be how people receive their news stories. One-man companies will be able to compete and flourish in this age of new journalism.

Privacy

Over the next decade there will be a battle between individual privacy and transparency. The new privacy will prevail with human curiosity knowing no limits. There will be legal limits set on certain types of information such as medical history and types of information linked to identity theft. Reputation repair will be as big as credit repair is today. Reputation monitoring by individuals will be as common as credit monitoring is today.

The new privacy will be both a curse and a necessary part of daily life in 2020. People will adapt and be much more careful about how they discuss information online.

Social Media
Growth will be strong in the area of collaboration. Social media will fully integrate with collaboration tools which will blur the line between personal time and work time. In 2020 social media will be heavily mobile. Geo-Tagging of posts will allow filtering and selecting of what social posts you want to view from your nearby area.

Social media will be the vehicle that helps put the human face back on business. Many big companies will move to virtual workforces that will work from home. This will give many big businesses the opportunity to feel small and human again

Our aging population will continue to adapt to and adopt technology. This will produce new flexible career opportunities for seniors who are past the age of traditional retirement. They will be able to contribute and earn incomes utilizing their life experiences and on their schedules. They will be able to work from home.

To be continued in What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 4

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What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 2

This blog entry was posted on May 15, 2010.

Computer innovation is happening at an ever accelerating pace. Hardware will continue to get smaller and more powerful. Smart computers aided by artificial intelligence will be here by 2020. At least repetitive tasks will be taken over by the smart computer.

Hardware Technology Advances

In 2020 laptop computers will have been replaced by personal communication devices (PCDs) that will be an evolution from the SmartPhones of today. These PCDs will be wirelessly connected and much smaller in size than we are used to today. These new devices will easily tie into the power of cloud computing.

These multi-function PCDs will be adopted the way wireless phones were adopted in the prior decade. In the US, cell phones had only a 38% penetration in 2000, but this rose to 91% by Dec 2009. PCDs will not only be phones, computers, GPS and video cameras, they will be portable translation devices and voice controlled smart computers.

These mobile devices will be the primary connection to the internet for most people in the world in 2020. These devices won’t require large amounts of storage because data and software will be store in the cloud.  This will allowed shared devices or duplicate devices to easily access programs and data where ever and whenever you want. But because storage will be cheap and much improved, they will have a large amount for video and photos.

New classes of portable devices will be developed that will have ten times more battery life. This will be done with a combination of advances in battery technology and new low energy processors for computing.

They will connect to displays as you move between home and work (if you are still commuting that is). You will only need to be in the proximity of your display in order to allow them to link up.

Display interfaces will dramatically change. Voice recognition will have become very robust augmented by artificial intelligence making the need for keyboards either greatly reduced or obsolete. Touch screens will become the accepted technology making the use of the mouse unneeded.

By 2020 most gadgets you purchase from appliances, TVs, cameras and cars will be Internet enabled allowing you to access information and communicate from almost anywhere.

To be continued in What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 3

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What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 1

This blog entry was posted on May 13, 2010.

The web has changed the very fabric of society and and how we conduct business during the first decade of the millennia. This last 10 years was named the Digital Decade by Microsoft in 2003. We saw massive adoption of technology by every age group from teens to seniors. It has affected how we communicate, how we shop, how we do business and even how we socialize.

Cell phones were transformed from simple phones to Internet enabled SmartPhones. Dial-up modems became almost extinct as broadband access rose from just 6% in the US in 2000 to over 95% among active Internet users. Displays moved from CRT to flat panel displays. Portable storage moved from CDs to DVDs to USB Flash drives.

What will the next 10 years bring?

Access: Today’s Internet has 1.8 Billion users according to Internet World Stats. With a World population of 6.7 Billion, this means 26% of our world population is online in 2010. The National Science Foundation predicts that by 2020 there will be nearly 5 Billion Internet users out of a projected population of nearly 7.6 Billion. This means 65% of our world population will be online.

By 2020 we would expect WiFi access to have seamless conductivity and no longer be limited to hotspots making web access from any device easy and universal. This has been described as a WiFi cloud cover or the “fog” for planet earth.

Being disconnected will be the exception. Historically bandwidth improves 3x every two years. The cloud will become the real power in the 2020 web. Who will become the big player in providing the cloud? Will it be Google? IBM? Microsoft? Cisco?  AT&T?

Cloud computing is internet based computer power where resources, data storage, software and information is shared on demand, much like the electricity power grid. By 2020, cloud computing will be the dominant technology where data and software is completely device independent.

To be continued in “What the Web Will Look Like in 2020? – Part 2” in our next blog posting.

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My 5 Internet Marketing Predictions for 2010

This blog entry was posted on December 27, 2009.

Businesses will continuing moving away from traditional marketing and toward Internet marketing. Many more traditional brick and mortar companies will begin tapping into web marketing. I have dusted off my crystal ball and am looking ahead to 2010 and how the web will change these small businesses.

1. More local websites: 53% of Small Businesses will have a website by December 2010. The number of small businesses that have a website has grown from 36% (November 2007) to 45% (August 2009) according to a studies by Discover Business card and Rasmussen Reports. This trend will accelerate as small businesses watch the increasing trend of local search from handheld mobile devices such as Smart Phones. This same report says that 47 percent of consumers say they are more likely to use a business if they have a web site.
2. Video will continue to grow: The website YouTube has 35% more video searches than the #2 search engine Yahoo has total searches (October 2009). 84.4% percent of online visitors watch web videos with the average viewer  (October 2009). The price of producing a video production continues to decrease. The price of Flip video cameras are under $200 making video cheap and easy to make. The standard video will be about 4 minutes and will be used in social media marketing and to visually demonstrate products in action.
3. Blog websites to increase: More companies will move their primary website to blog platforms such as WordPress.org. RSS feeds are a powerful SEO tool and the search engine friendly structure makes these blog websites a natural. Blogs lend themselves better to social media marketing. Adding WordPress plugins such as Sociable or reTweet make integration into social media easy.
4. Relationship Marketing: On the web, size doesn’t matter, relationships matter. How marketing is done is changing at an ever increasing rate. Traditional marketing broadcasts a message. Businesses will move more into social media marketing where they can engage their targeted customer and interact with them. Blog marketing will continue to grow but will become more integrated with other forms of social media.
5. Polarization in Social Media: The over 40 crowd will settle in on just a few forms of social media to interact and get their information. This older crowd will try and distance themselves from the “noise” and chatter that comes with many forms of social media like Twitter. The younger consumers will increase their use of social media on all fronts. Businesses marketing to younger consumers will have to step up their entry into social media marketing.

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