Interactive advertising heats up: for real this time

It's been clear for a few years that "convergence" - the merger of the internet, radio, and television - is quickly becoming the next outlet for media syndication.
Like any industry comprised of several huge conglomerates, the advertising industry has been no slouch to recognize this and make efforts to accommodate change. Although the paradigm shift is already here, brands are slowly inching their dollars away from network television spending and towards the internet. What are the trends in new media advertising, and who will win out?

A few years ago, advertising on the internet meant building a sleek site in flash with marketing ad-ons like wallpaper and buddy icons.

Two years ago, blogs and social networking was king, but no one knew how to leverage it.

Last year, viral marketing was king and this year, we return to what was there all along - the precedent that Google had created years ago with cold, hard, data. Adwords, SEO, and Analytics. Not very sexy, but it's the whole point of advertising on the internet, isn't it?

My prediction is two-fold. The first is that social media sites will quickly replace social networking. A social media site is a social network that is niche-specific and includes content created by the member or user. User generated content (or UGC) is no longer defined by music, movies, and images, but now includes practical information such as reviews, feedback, and rankings. So, when a user does a search for a restaurant review the chance of accidentally stumbling across that review increases, hence traffic is driven to the site. This endemic environment becomes conducive to ad placement and targeted marketing at the 1-to-1 level.

Secondly, we'll see small, well placed and hard working text based adverts. Because ultimately, it's the hard numbers that rule.

Then there is the material that interests me the most and lives outside of the net- installation-based advertising. More on that to come...


Cannes opens door to Internet World, WSJ
Gone in 30 Seconds, Washington Post

Changing Tech keeps Ad Firms Hopping, USA Today