Signs of Web 2.0 Invading the Real World

Being a good [tag-tec]marketer[/tag-tec] means being aware of what is going on around you - both in and out of your discipline and your industry. Your ability to solve marketing challenges and breakthrough with new and innovative profit paths will be greatly enhanced by your awareness.

You can hardly watch a television news program without seeing a YouTube video. What a boon it must be for TV shows to have all these reporters and producers uploading their grainy content for public (commercial?) use.

Signs of Web 2.0 are everywhere in the real world. Yes, in many ways YouTube is the worlds biggest America's Funniest Home Videos - and hardly a force in the education or enlightenment world, and information on how much revenue those banner ads convert into, but for sure those videos are a cultural phenomenon.

No MySpace page? You may as well not exist.

I heard one guy say that his biggest worry these days was what was going to happen to his MySpace page when he died? Ponder that for a while.

Do you use any of the phone books they keep dropping in your door step? (Is the Amazon jungle being shredded for all those Yellow Books?) I have gotten so used to finding what I want online that whenever anyone asks me a technical question my reply is the same, "type that exact thing into Google." Funny, but it usually works on the first page.

Consider your future operations as on online marketer or someone who is taking their offline business online when more and more people are leaving behind traditional entertainment sources (bumpered with commercial advertising for YOUR products) by spending less time on TV and more time making mashups, posting to their own blog or Facebook.

Newspapers across the nation are laying off people. Writers are migrating to the web. In a recent Bill O' Reilly interview a newspaper columnist from Seattle tried to get off the hook for her crazy sympathetic comments about understanding why the gay activist was trying to burn down a church as a work of "artistic expression" by saying that her article was not a newspaper published column, but a blog post.

Blog post, news article, mp3, YouTube video, what really is the difference?

Are we so naive as to believe that a newspaper would automatically be more credible than a corporate blog? Personal reporting and blog opinions are moving higher and higher in importance. It was, after all, the Drudge Report blog that broke the story of Monica Lewinsky's UnClean blue dress.

Blogs had a very powerful impact on the 2004 Presidential election - and now organizations like MoveOn.org and others are forces to be reckoned with.

Are you paying attention to the things going on around you? And are you trying to think through the implications of what it all means - and where your business is headed?

Wayne Gretzsky's quote about "skating to where the puck is GOING to be, not where it is" applies directly here. If you'll make it a regular part of your thinking process - you can start "futuring."

It's a lot of fun!

Rick Butts