I had a conversation recently with a client about where the IT industry in general, or the internet in particular, is going to be in the next couple of years. The first place to start with this kind of hypothesizing is to really understand where the industry is now. I get the idea most folks don’t quite understand the massive transformation that has occurred in the technology world in the last several years. The fact is, we are in the midst of a gigantic melding of media and technology, and when it is complete, there will be no distinction between the two. Televisions and cell phones that surf the internet, search engines that run print media companies, all of these mutations are becoming viable markets now. In John Batelle’s excellent new book “The Search”, he envisions a free, ad-driven wireless or cell phone network that covers the entire nation. Imagine, services like these becoming completely free, the same way network television and radio is free, driven only by ads.
Perhaps the most important development that is taking shape is the idea of measured marketing. Since the beginning of time, marketing has been one of those unmeasurable entities that sucks funds out of company coffers, in the blind hope that it will drive business. Now, we have a whole slew of tools that measure the return on investment for internet advertising, and the best thing is that this advertising is so perfectly targeted. Internet advertising has become a gigantic industry, and it has proven to be THE most cost effective means of advertising out there.
So , you combine the ubiquity of technology and its head-first amalgamation with media, with the perfection of the science of marketing, and you have a couple billion perfectly targeted consumers that can be pinpointed for product advertisement, and conversely, can find exactly what they want with extreme ease.
This is amazing, and exciting, and just a little bit terrifying..