[Posted by Tom Cummings.]

We recently published WebTrack review of how major companies are using Twitter. Over a span of three days in
October, we tracked 30 marketers on Twitter to see how they named and branded
their accounts, how often they tweeted, how they interacted with other
Twitter users, and more. We didn't just study the most popular accounts on Twitter –
instead, we looked for a broad sample of accounts across key industries (including retail, travel, financial services, auto, and CPG).

For the most part, brands get the basics right. 
The large majority interact with followers (more than three-quarters of the brands we tracked reply and retweet). And most fill their streams with a steady flow of relevant content (80% tweet at least daily). We especially liked seeing companies go beyond traditional marketing messages – like when State Farm promotes fire alarm safety or when Ford gives behind-the-scenes perspective on their new engineering processes.

But while most get the basics right, many branded Twitter accounts still fall short
on some key points.  For instance, it’s surprisingly difficult to
find the appropriate account for many brands.  Neither Google nor Twitter search offer an ideal way to find a company's official account – and often, a company's official primary account isn't the most active or the most followed.

We were also surprised that only half of the accounts we
reviewed “validate” their Twitter page.  It's not enough to link from a Twitter account to a corporate page – those corporate pages must also link back to
the account to prove that the account is official.

We like how Whole Foods – which runs more than 100 official accounts – handles both of these problems: They keep their primary account name simple and searchable (@WholeFoods) and link from that account to a list of all their other accounts. Other marketers should follow suit – because it’s up to them to prove the authenticity of their account
(no matter how many followers they have) and to make it easy for fans to find the right account to follow.

Clients can read more examples and findings in the full report. In the meantime, we’d love to hear how your brand is using Twitter, how you let
fans know about the account, and what other tips you have for best leveraging the power of Twitter.

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I've spent the last year living and working in Vancouver, Canada — speaking with many Canadian interactive marketers and agencies, and collecting survey data on Canadian consumers — so I'm pleased to say that yesterday we released a new report, Canadian Social Technographics Revealed, and added our latest Canadian data to our free Social Technographics Profile Tool.

In researching this report, I learned that:

• Canadians are the most active social networkers in any market we survey. In our Social Technographics Ladder, we refer to those who regularly use social networks as 'joiners.' And Canada boasts a higher percentage of joiners than any of the other 12 countries we regularly survey: 57% of Canadians told us they use social networks at least once each month. (The next strongest social networking market is the US, where 51% are joiners.) Canada also has more 'creators,' critics,' and 'spectators' than many other countries. [An edit to avoid confusion: while Canadians are the strongest adopters of social networks we've found in our surveys, they are not the strongest users of social media overall (which would include not just social networks but also blogs and other social platforms) -- that would be the South Koreans.]
• Many Canadian marketers have been using social media for years. With all those socially engaged consumers, it's no surprise Canadian marketers have been pretty aggressive in adopting social media too. The report includes several great examples of marketers successfully using social media, and I found that some of the most innovative marketers (like Vancity and Molson) have been leveraging social media for 3 or 4 years now.

One of my favorite examples of social media marketing in Canada comes from the political realm. NDP leader Jack Layton recognized that his followers were among the most socially engaged in Canada, as you'll see below. So he used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to energize NDP voters before the 2008 federal election — and that helped the party gain 31% more seats in Ottawa than they'd had in the previous government.

Go and have a play with our Social Technographics Profile Tool and you can find free cuts of this data by age and gender. (Clients can also ask us to cut the data by other factors, like where people bank, which mobile carrier they use, or what province they live in.)

And if you've got any other great examples of social media marketing in Canada, let us know in the comments below.

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The much-praised reputation mechanism that is supposed to ensure that bloggers remain true, honest and factually-correct is, in fact, just the rule of the mob, where those who shout loudest and get the most inbound links are taken more seriously and visited!! It is the online equivalent of saying that The Times of India always tells the truth because four crores people read it, and Indian Express is intrinsically less trustworthy as it only sells 2 crores.

How blogging is changing journalism and whether blogging is actually journalism? I am not denying the significance of blogging, or the value that comes from having the unmediated opinions and experiences of millions of people available online. Blogging left the geeks behind long ago, and the wide availability of easy to use tools like India City Pages, Blogger, WordPress, b2evolution, Movable Type and Grey Matter has allowed anyone with an interest and some time to create their own online journal.

I just do not subscribe to the view that this challenges mainstream journalism, even if it does mean that sloppy reporting and analysis based on incorrect assertions are more likely to be challenged by the online community.

On Google’s Blogging Plans? Some think that Google was simply helping out an innovator in hard times. Others see it as the start of an attempt by this most successful of search engines to own the blogospace all the blogs. Another theory has it that Google will use the content from the blogs it now owns to fine tune its news service by using the bloggers as an early warning system on breaking stories. The Indian equivalent of it is IndiaCityPages.com!

Author is the Lead Web Consultant with Solution Point.

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With the ever-growing assortment of specialty TV Channels and the variety of new media options available, you have to target advertising budget carefully to reach the right audience at the right time. This is what media planner do as part of an advertising agency or in specialty firms. Media planners works closely with the marketing and advertising team to devise a media strategy and find answers to questions like:

- What is the right media mix (TV, Print, Internet, etc.)?
- What specific media offer access to the target market?
- When should advertisements appear, and how often?

You need to devise a media plan that has the best chance for success. That’s what media planning is all about!

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For example, a Brazilian mobile search marketing agency had released details of a campaign staged for one of Brazil’s largest shopping mall last year. There were four elements to the campaign: Bluetooth marketing, SMS interaction, a mobile Internet site, and voice calls. In recent past, marketing executives have jumped on the text messaging phenomena. It has exploded amongst young people, a key demographic for companies wanting to promote their brand to a new generation of consumers.

European auto-major Peugeot created a 207 WAP site that was designed to deliver on the creative expectations of the above-the-line and outdoor advertising. There were two versions of the sites, one graphics-heavy, the other graphics-light for users wanting a faster experience. While the TV campaign was designed to sell the style of the 207, the WAP site was charged with the substance.

But remember, there is no advantage in sending out unwarranted mobile text messages . It is self defeating and counter productive. Consumers are increasingly being targeted by firms operating scams and even sending unwarranted junk text messages. There are a small number of people out there with malicious intent to take advantage of consumers and that is not acceptable on a perfectly legitimate basis. This is where mobile seo comes to rescue:

• Google Mobile
• Yahoo! Mobile
• MSN Mobile Search
• AOL Mobile Search
• Nokia Mobile Search
• Technorati Mobile
• 4INFO Mobile Search

Location-based mobile services is a growth area for mobile data and mobile operators are pitching your handset as more-n-more personal. Consumers repeatedly rank location-aware services like maps as a highly desirable handset feature. All the major cell operators are starting to build services around navigation and maps. Very soon, location services will be added to the increasing amount of digital information available on handsets.

A good example of where m-commerce is going are iPhone, Nokia N-Series, Samsung Devices and Google’s T-Mobile G1 with Andriod OS, etc.. These handsets small but full web display, wi-fi connections, WLAN, 3G connection., etc. Once we have better handsets, easier-to-use handset software and, crucially, faster connections, most of the sites we see today will run perfectly well on the type of memory and processing power that will be available in our mobiles. PCs will always have faster connections and more power, so mobile will always be playing catch-up. The rise of m-commerce will mirror the rise of ecommerce. It is definitely going to happen, so it`s best to be prepare your website for mobile phones now! We have a guide to mobile search marketing:

1. Get your .mobi domain name
2. Look for a mobile web developer
3. Do On-site mobile SEO
4. Getting spidered and indexed by mobile search engines

Use XHTML 1.0 complaint code as WML may be phased out in the near future. Many optimizers on the traditional websites do not consider using valid code as a best practice. Mobile search engines however may have more trouble processing invalid code. If you validate, mobile search engines won’t have any trouble with your site.

Adher to accessibility best practices to ensure that your content is accessible to anyone regardless of their platform, this includes mobile users and mobile search engines. The W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative is a good place refer for the latest information on accessibility.

Use on-site SEO best practices – with major keywords in the title tag, H1’s and body text, keyword-rich anchor text for internal links, etc. Get spidered and indexed by mobile search engines by submitting your site to major mobile search engines for spidering like Google and Yahoo.

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There is a growing rush to join social networks all around both highly popular websites and small niche and local sites (like IndiaCityPages.com), online consumers are moving towards establishing connections in some form or another. Networking trends has brought millions of advertising money to these networks. The ultimate sign of success is when you make it out via one of these sites – but keep sailing if you think you have a shot at the next exit.

The big question is, how to build a user base, when users join social networks only when their friends are already using them. Mike Speiser, who founded talent competition social network Bix and sold it to Yahoo. He said everyone at the start-up to send a link to the site to everyone in their address books. Sure, there is no silver bullet for overnight success.
Social networks brings a sense of connection for people online. I remember one of the things I loved to do when Yahoo first came out was chat. I would go into chat rooms all the time, and it was new and it was fun. Although the need for human interaction online has always been there, however, the realization of that need did not take place until emergence of many other players. They did not provide the type of social networking that you and I do today but it did provide a way for people to reconnect, email and chat with each other. The evolution of online social networking has reached its realization with sites like Facebook and MySpace breeding millions of users.

Who are these millions? Why are they gathering on such networks? Well..

1. They lack time and are getting busier. Such networks allow them to do it at their time.
2. Lack of face-to-face networking lowers ambitions and allows people to be more open, maybe.
3. Sharing with people and learning from each other in a fast paced environment.
4. Social networks that are user generated provides an entirely new way to find content.

As eager as online advertisers are to tap into the rich source of information that people freely offer about themselves on sites like Facebook and MySpace.com, there are nevertheless growing concerns about the privacy issues raised by such tactics. Facebook is allowing advertisers set up their own profile pages at no charge and encouraging companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi to share information with Facebook about the actions of Facebook members on their sites. Ad Executives from consumer brand companies view ads on social networking sites as a priority in their ad spending. I heard they are now spending less on traditional broadcasting and print media!!

In business, appeal of social networking is limited largely to industries where workers are fairly isolated from their colleagues on a daily basis, like medicine, construction and sales. Online services are trying to promote a more personal type of business networking. Unlike relatively simple message boards that are open to all, these new sites for doctors and engineers have features such as profile pages showing professional credentials; personal blogs that function like a kind of online diary, links to friends online, invitations to real or online events, and instant-messaging.

Some social sites also charge a membership fee. For example, Reuters Group PLC is launching a new social-networking service (Reuters Space!), for fund managers, traders and analysts. They will be able to log on to create profiles with industry-relevant information like their asset class and instruments, check financial news feeds and ruminate about the industry on personal blogs. It also plans to allow companies to block certain features like blogging and to archive employees’ online activities for compliance purposes. No stopping here, though!

Sites like StumbleUpon.com, del.icio.us, newsvine.com and digg.com provide very unique content which, most likely, we would never find using Google. These reasons have brought the need for connecting online directly to the end user or consumer. The fact that many are now using social networks makes it clear why there is so much money being spent on social network advertising.

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As usability guru Jakob Nielsen (www.useit.com) puts it, web users love to consume non-linear, reader-driven and actionable content. A detailed approach is required for online writing as the content is searchable and you can sort and present it in personalized views for each user. Online content should be brief and to the point, as most users are likely to be on a specific goal and pulled up your web page through a search engine looking for actionable content. Web content must support the their personal story by condensing and combining vast stores of information into something that specifically meets their immediate needs.

Report on web habits shows that people are becoming much less patient when they go online. Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete their task and leave. An important guideline on writing for the Web is to employ the user terminology as you won’t be found unless your web page contains the keywords people are searching for. This is an old idea, and most marketers persist in using terms that may sound fancy, but which nobody searches for!

Copywriting as utilized by the Search Engine Optimization business is also known as Internet Content Writing or Web Content Writing. Whatever you call it, avoid the difficult headlines and keywords – that requires thought and is not clear at first glance and users may not be used to those words or phrases. Remember that the user attention is yours for only a single involuntary instant. People will not use up their valuable time trying to figure out what you mean. They will simply click to reach a simpler page.

Depending on what you are selling on the website, your writing approach may change. Depends on if you want to educate the consumer or let them use their imagination to experience things. A combined approach works best. Make efforts to sound as unique as possible. Highlight specific quality or qualities that your business possesses. Gather all about your business to better understand what you are trying to accomplish. Proofread to ensure that your writing makes sense and sounds the way you want it to. Do not forget to use spell-check and grammar-check functions.

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We have came a long way since and the way people advertise their product or service is getting more complex with brand proliferation and the online media penetrating even the African Continent on a massive scale. Welcome to the world of Online advertising or Web advertising, Interactive Advertising, Internet advertising and e-Advertising. But whatever be the name, in essence, it is all advertising.

The Internet has produced a revolutionary new way for businesses to communicate and interact with their customers. Everyone from small firms to Fortune Companies are racing to make their mark in cyberspace with their own “Home Pages” on the internet media (www). Internet growth is creating advertising opportunities for marketers. The number of Internet users around the world is constantly growing and so are Internet Marketing Consultants, Adwords Consultants in India and Internet Marketing Companies.

As Internet users are growing day by day; so are Internet advertisers because they can easily, effectively and efficiently communicate their products or services to targeted mass audience. Add to this the fact that Internet users are well educated with high incomes, it is only logical to conclude that Internet surfers are a desired target for advertisers. Other reasons why online advertising is growing rapidly are:

- Advertisement can reach very large number of potential buyers globally.
- New media superiority over other advertising medium
- Online advertisements are cheaper in comparison to traditional advertisement. There is no printing costs, no postage costs etc.
- Web page (advertisement) can be updated any time and changes or corrections are painless.
- Online advertisement works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
- In online advertisement specific interest groups or individuals can be targeted.
- New media convergence effectively use the convergence of text, audio, graphics, and animation.

Forms of online advertising The Internet is a great place to advertise. There are many forms of online advertising. Some of the main ones involved:

- E-mail sponsorship advertising
- Newsletter and E-zine advertising
- Rich media advertising (flash ads, Interstitials & Superstitials, streaming audio/video, etc)
- Pop-up/pop -under advertising
- Online banner advertising
- Sponsorship (web sites, e-mails, sweep stakes)
- Advertorial (Paid-for editorial) placements.

Benefits of www advertisements:
The Internet has great potential as media carrier compared to traditional media. It offers higher selectivity which is tailored to the users profile. The customer can also customize the adverts as he/she is in charge of his own navigation. Through the online advertising the advertiser can get quick, easy and inexpensive feedback in real time, which no other media offers, providing a higher feedback rate. Some other benefits of online advertising are as under:

- Online advertising facilitates the advertiser to reach an absolutely pinpointed and targeted audience.
- “Traditional advertising is usually a one-way mechanism there is no way for customers to act on the information in the advertisements. On the Internet, however, interested customers can click on a banner, learn more, and actually make purchase on the spot,” states Arti Dwarkadas, business director, Ogilvy Interaction.
- The Internet as a medium knows no demographic boundaries and gives the advertiser a huge audience to tap and build brand image if not sell products.
- Interactive nature of Internet allows for greater flexibility than traditional media in the type of information transmitted and the method of transmission.
- Online advertisement can facilitate purchase decision.
- Enhance customer company relationship.
- Protection of environment.
- Online advertisement expands the company’s market to global market.
- It is easy to create, and place, it saves time, labor and money.
- No loss of quality even after a very long period of time.

Limitations of online advertising
Research, reveals that not many companies take advantage of online advertising opportunity.
There are many reasons behind it. Some of the most common are as under:
- Online advertising is not simply a “Customer oriented” medium; it is a customer-dominated medium
- Online advertising is not emotional medium like T.V.; it is a cognitive medium
- Mindset shift in using online advertising
- Psychological fear of IT
- Infrastructure inadequacy
- High cost
- Limited space
- Limited information
- Users work on the net for a specific purpose; they are not interested in other things like advertising
- Company can’t target all the potential customers like those who are not Internet users
- Too many companies are trying to slice up a tiny online advertising pie, resulting in commoditisation of the business and leading to extreme competition pressure.
- Suggestions for online advertising
- Understanding the right way to advertise on the Internet is extremely important as the negative or downside potential is extremely great for a small start-up or medium sized firm.
Here are some suggestions for effecting online advertising:
- Make sure that the audience of the site matches with the audience you are advertising.
- Online advertising should be valued in terms of the value of the business it creates from the new users it attracts to your site.
- Placing advertisement in the right content vehicles.
- Determine optimal frequency can be the factor, which determines the effectiveness of any advertising campaign.
- Keep Innovating.
- Use of animation to attract the audience.
- An effective presentation simply shows your visitors the right answer to the questions they have.
- Keep it simple.
- Considering the human factor of selling on the web.
- Don’t forget to follow advertising ethics online.
- In almost all cases you want your message to be very short. People don’t have time to drill into your advertisement for meaning.
- Don’t make outrageous claims and don’t lie.
- Make sure that you offer some thing worthwhile.

Final Words: e-Marketing articles, resources and strategy
No doubt, online advertising offers potential benefits like targetability, tracking, deliverability, flexibility, interactivity, etc.; that are not available through traditional media. But it doesn’t mean that online advertising is the superb way of advertising. It has many limitations also. Success of online advertising requires sound strategy, management understanding, commitment and integration of Internet with companies overall marketing strategy. At this point, it is very hard to predict the future of online advertising because this industry is too young to allow internet marketing consultants to reach any concrete conclusion. Several factors will influence the future of online advertising like privacy issue, legal issue, and security issue, infra structural and above all market itself.

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In best scenarios, technology always stays in the background: it creates the necessary conditions for spreading our own creativity through digital media. If we accept this position, no matter if a web site is made using HTML or Flash, what’s really important is the beauty it expresses. We must build aesthetics, starting from the perceptive and sensory world, not from the idea. Authentic advances in Web Art will be reached when we cease thinking of the Web as an expressive medium, and more of a cultural and social interface.

And to affirm that aesthetic forms possess a social and cultural value, it means to negate – at root – the modern social organization that comes to measure any expression, including artistic ones, on the basis of market value. Again, to affirm that a message, a form, a thought, has an intrinsic value before the commercial one seems banal, nevertheless is an aversive affirmation if compared to global capitalism. Diffusion of Web aesthetics is ultimately one of the few practicable ways to liberate the new media world from the slavery in which it has been condemned by commercial communication.

Most of the new internet workers seem to incarnate the ideal consumer model dreamed up by marketing gurus. They uncritically accept a lifestyle that other people have designed for them, rather than shaping their own. The picture of the situation could appear tragic, nevertheless, it’s amazing to look at the reactions that you can breed in them when you are able to uncover some conditioned thought processes of which they are victim. When it happens, you can clearly see how a growing interest rises in them, together with the determination to react (also in a creative way). The walk is quite long, therefore it’s important that none of us give up the responsibility to educate and make new generations aware.

The market still doesn’t know how to sell objects like websites, but if we erase the commercial layer, then Art returns to its natural function: to open windows where mankind can look at its own condition. The first decade of web design was focused on speculative thinking about the potentials of the medium, followed by “best practices” literature and the long silence after the dot-com boom crashed. Now we are at the Web 2.0 point, and this indicates an evolution of the way we look at this medium. Despite a lack of unanimity on what Web 2.0 should be, we certainly have made some steps forward – for example, we have dropped the useless antithesis between texts and images: now we consider them as modalities of reading and representing reality, and we believe that a rich media has to enhance them both, instead of contrasting them.

We have also dropped the ideas that the Web constitutes a return to the oral tradition or to the written word indeed, both statements have proven fallacious, and we now prefer to speak about a continuum of languages. These conceptual advances also find a hands-on application in web design, as interface designs are responding to narrative and orientation needs that are miles beyond the early desktop metaphor. As a consequence, the web designer’s role is no longer to draw, but rather to arrange environments for interaction (between users, between image and text, between books and TV, between the symbolic and the perceptive, between the active and the passive, etc.). We have overcome that stage of excitement over the potentials of the medium, and we are now focusing on the nature of the Web itself – its developments and the interactions between the Net and society.

Practical Aesthetics on the Web: If we look at the Net we can clearly see a lot of genres (mail art, ASCII art, generative art, hacker art, pixel art, and so on.), but we can also identify a style. A couple of the main elements of this style are; the remixing attitude and the D.I.Y. practice. New media force us to do a continuous cut and paste’ of the endless digital data surrounding us. Thus, we can assume that remixing is the composition method of our times.

At the same time, new media give us the potential to get our hands around this growing digital data sea, indeed, we can manage and shape it even if we don’t have particular expertise. So we draw data from an endless source and we recombine them using all kind of digital tools, in few words: we remix culture on our own.

With Internet culture the masses of users these days are so advanced. Theory and criticism have yet to discover blogs, Second Life, Wikipedia and all that. Having said that, it’s clear we no longer live in the 1980s and have to promote a serious study of popular (media) culture. But who’s discovering a new world like Second Life? Who’s populating our databases, our wikis and our blogs? Who’s testing our new digital tools? First, we need them to reach a critical mass. As a consequence all the communication is directed to them: try this new product for free’, trial period’, make a free tour’, open your own blog’, publish your photo album’, these and many others formulas witnessing that we need the masses of users in order to get feedback, to give basis to our theories, to shape our products.

We don’t need them just as audience (the TV age model), the Internet age postulates an active participation, thus, the masses are required to turn themselves into players. With all the digital media and contexts we are creating the masses have also produced an incredible amount of user-generated content. If that is actually what we define as popular culture’, then the questions are: what are we supposed to do with all this stuff? Is this cultural production significant? Should we spend our time in studying and analyzing it?

For sure we don’t have time to do that, so we limit ourselves to give a bit of our attention to the events that, pushed by mass media, bounce under our noses. For example, the most interesting thing for us is to observe how the top rated/most viewed videos on YouTube are all commercial TV like’ products; the usual Second Life public spaces are crowded with more advertising than Las Vegas (most of them are dedicated to sex); the stick memories of the average MP3 players are filled with the same music you can listen to on any commercial radio station, and shall we talk about the subjects of the photos stored in millions of digital cameras?

With new media we are repeating the stupidity and the uselessness of our TV formats, the advertising’s invasion of any public space, the boredom of the pop music scene, etc. Vulgarity and the dissipation of any significance are moving from old media to new media, and we don’t see any good reason to spend time with such popular culture’.

It’s also very interesting to observe how the old media are becoming more and more permeable to blogs and D.I.Y. information. This phenomenon is not due to a fascination in more democratic information sources. On the contrary – the pressure is rising due to the growth of the eyes’ (cameras and new digital devices) that are watching the same events that mainstream media are reporting to us: the possibility of being uncovered are too many and broadcast journalists are forced to tell the truth (or at least a plausible version of it). As a consequence, blogs have become the major source of news and information about many global affairs. We also have to consider that bloggers are often the only real journalists, as they (at their own risk) provide independent news in countries where the mainstream media is censored, biased or under control.

Towards this goal, no sophistication, we prefer minimalist approach to web design, with clear and linear interfaces that give intuitive access to sophisticated and very structured data. When you have to manage complex data sets or very rich multimedia contents, the best you can do is design a structure that is very minimal. Indeed, you don’t have to add meaning to the content you are representing, otherwise you make it useless and baroque. Nevertheless, minimalist doesn’t mean careless or dull, instead it means “not one sign more than necessary”, it means taking care of details, it means being moderate and objective.

We also have to consider that there are so many kinds of data that there can’t be one universal formula of access. In fact, some information, such as the structure of a network, need graphic expedients to be understood. Also, there are many realities that have no meaning if showed only in a textual format. In those cases we use graphs, charts, etc., and very often we obtain wonderful and unexpected forms.

Finally a right answer for creating a perfect new media asset (a website) should be discovered on a case-to-case basis, and the only line we can certainly detect is the one between the amount of complexity required by a representation (objective factor) and the self-satisfaction that pushes any web designer into going over what is required (subjective factor).

- Ref. networkcultures.org, and few other media journals/stories and online ad channels.
- Author is the Lead Web Interface Consultant with Solution Point, India

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To elaborate the point a bit more, as far as consumer adoption is concerned, the Internet has done very well; the advantage it has is its multi-dimensional character, which no other media has; they are all uni-dimensional, in the sense that they satisfy either the information or entertainment needs of people. The Internet, however, can do much more; it can be used as a transactional medium – you can buy online; do your bank transactions; communicate using tools like email, VoIP and messengers. And of course, it satisfies your information and learning needs – so the Internet is actually media plus. It would be wrong to classify it as a media property; it’s not just a media property; it’s much more than that.

It is the biggest revolution in our lifetimes; it substitutes for your shopping; it substitutes for your bank; it substitutes for your newspaper and much more. The world is still coming to grips with how the Internet will affect our lives? It already has, phenomenally, but I don’t think we have quite seen what all it can do. With its ability to take on digital sound and video – video on demand, pay-per-view films – and the ability to project them on large screens, it may also replace cinema halls one day!

It’s a big thing but we have not quite seen what all can it do for us. It’s really the strongest force in changing the patterns of consumer behavior that we have seen in last few years. While we are lesser mortals, even the founding fathers of the Internet will not be able tell you what all it can or will do for you.

Consumer will be the king: The Internet will virtually take over a part of our lives; well, for youngsters it already has! Gone are the days of visiting libraries for research, since students get access to everything right on their desktops thanks to Google search and other portals like that. In fact if we look back into our lives we would realize that how much we are able to do on the Internet today, from banking to shopping to communicating with friends, all of it. We can’t even imagine today what all it will substitute in our lives in the years to come if it hasn’t already.

Print and TV media are bound to get affected. They are all content-cum-distribution centric activities, but in the years to come, they will have to get increasingly divorced from the distribution part of their business. Therefore, if a newspaper were to look upon itself as a content business, and not as content married to a particular platform, then it will realize that it simply has to be in the Internet space; because the Internet has taken simple content delivery to content interaction to content manipulation which has elevated content efficiency to an exponential level, something which the Print and TV media cannot do.

So, when we say TV is merely a distribution technology that we are referring to; its video content has to be usable on the Internet, which allows one-is-to-one communication and interactivity (both these things are not possible on TV and Print media). It goes without saying that traditional video content has to undergo a phenomenal change on the Internet – and if content companies do not adapt to this change, they will die, because the Internet will become the number one content delivery platform. Another advantage with the Internet is that, unlike TV and print, it’s not a linear medium; content on the Internet can be presented in a form that enables it to be delivered individually to each person and allows that person to communicate back; so if you marry these things to content it can be customized to each individual’s requirement.

Companies like ours have to keep their ears to the ground and grow with the business; grow with consumer needs and find newer ways of either consuming that content or interacting with it or customizing it to cater to consumers needs. We need to be prepared as the consumer will get increasingly important and demanding and we have to grow with his needs, since we cannot predict them. The fact that he needs information is a given, but the how and in what manner he is going to consume it is a great unknown. If you think you have figured it out, you are dead because consumer patterns change, consumer behavior is the most unyielding reality in any business, as the consumer evolves in ways that you and I cannot predict. We have to learn each day and change ourselves, I think we are living in fascinating times in that sense.

What will happen when today 20 year old turns 40 in two decades? While the trend is that the younger generation forms a big chunk of Internet users, the older lot has also started moving in, more for the sake of convenience and conducting transactions. But still, conventional media forms an important part of the older generation’s lives. The question that needs answering – and I don’t think anybody has the answer to this – is what happens when the younger generation gets into the 35-40 bracket; will it stay as much with the Internet, to the virtual exclusion of all other media? Or will it start imbibing media in the more traditional manner? I think the answer to this is not known.

Also, it would be too facile to say that they won’t, because as kids their needs are different; their lives revolve around a small community, the outside world does not matter so much to them. But as you grow older, the outside world becomes important; it matters to your work; whatever is happening around the globe matters to you. What happens then?

Information is available everywhere; but do we need to customize this kind of general information? The information then gravitates towards the public domain, in the sense that it is less customized, it’s more uniform as millions of people are going to consume it. So though today’s younger generation will definitely stay on with the Internet even two decades later, the NATURE and CHARACTER of the information that they would want to consume is likely to become very similar to the kind of information that today’s older generation is imbibing. It may start approximating much more to what you and I call traditional media. So people who are doing an obituary of traditional media are doing it too fast.

Of course the delivery of this traditional information of 2030 will be on the Internet, but not all information may necessarily be as customized as some would like to believe. I keep grappling with this thought.

Original Writer and Copyright – Managing Director of TV18, India

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