The jury is in: two of the leading apps that unleashed the power of the web are dead (or soon to be dead).
Maybe not news to some that spend more than 15 seconds following trends in marketing communication, but anyone with a sense of intuition can see the writing on the walls...which are now typically limited to #'s and no more than 100 or so characters.
Email: As reported in today's NYT "..the number of visitors to web-based email sites (Gmail, Yahoo!, etc.) declined 5.9% from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010, according to comScore. That decline reflects the spread of email devices (e.g. iPhones) which do no need to log onto the Web to see messages; the number of people who use mobile devices to check e-mail rose 40% during the same period.."
More predictive: 24% fewer people age 12-17 used web-based email during the same period. This means that the new generation rising up through the ranks into adulthood, and presumably jobs (lets hope!), will have adapted completely different forms of communication than the current workforce.
Other than using email to transmit corporate communications and the most formal correspondences, Facebook (and other social networks), txt'ing and Tumbling on Tumblr will displace email altogether by the year 2015.
Bloggers are bygone. From 2000-2009, we told our corporate clients "if you don't have a blog, and if you're not maintaining it consistently, your competitors will be eating your lunch.." This was (arguably) sage advice.
If you're accustomed to changing your underwear, its time to change your 'blogging" strategy; tumble over to Tumblr; a move advocated by Web guru Rex Sorgatz, along with tens of dozens of the most highly-regarded internet gurus. Why?
Simple Math: Social media has killed the ironic or iconic blog "headline"; exponentially more traffic today comes from headlines distributed on Facebook, Twitter and other short-form media-communication apps.
On the topic of simple math: We've insinuated, if not insisted that intuitive marketing strategies will soon be displaced by quant-based predictive applications.
Lo and behold, according to Sunil Gupta, a Harvard Business School professor who teaches digital marketing, "Marketers are moving away from intrusion strategies that use ads running in the middle of TV programs to a more cooperative model in which they try to stimulate discussion across social networks. In the traditional world, marketing used to focus on the middle part of the bell curve and reaching out to them. Now, the way to reach out to the middle part is through the extreme ends of the curve..."
If you're a marcom guru that's over 40 and you don't already have a mobile device that keeps you connected and in touch, its not too late to get on the bus before it rolls over you. And it will, trust me.
No comments:
Post a Comment