Brave New WorldTechCrunch alerted me to a very interesting YouTube video created by Davide Casaleggio that appeared first on Read/Write Web. The video talks about the future of the Internet in a 1984 / Brave New World style. A bit creepy where everyone is connected online via avatars or as the video puts it Agav, an agent avatar. Second Life, Amazon, and Google are the short term winners but Google eventually rules the world in 2050. The Agav's have five senses built in so that you can trade experiences with anyone (i.e. Joe's European vacation can be yours too!)
The video is definitely creepy and I hope that avatar interaction never replaces real life interaction (although for some MMORPG's this is already reality). However, it really gets you to think about where the Web is going and how much more we can exploit by making the World "flat." Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, already discusses how small the world is when you can pick up your VoIP and call around the world or email or IM someone in India for example. With Agav's this will give you the feel of knowing someone without knowing someone. However, the video also brings up an interesting point that "No one on the Internet knows that you're a dog." I think that if this is the main way that we begin to do business, there will be ways to assure folks that you are who you say you are. Stronger security and identity measures will need to be in place.
And then finally we run into this cultural problem. The root of all of our problems right now. (I don't want to get political here but...) Online culture will be dominated by who has the most dollars. At this point, its the USA. Will US culture be the dominant one online? And if so, what are the repercussions? With information and culture so available, will other cultures be completely forgotten, destroyed, or wiped out?
Interesting points here but I think one thing remains is that one mile is one mile and that local news will always be of interest to the users. I spoke about local and the big market opportunity that this is. I think that overall the Web will be used for understanding of culture (hopefully) but the ability to broadcast your culture online and for others to respect and learn about other people. After all, like the movie Babel, misunderstanding is the root of most problems. Could the Web be that next Tower of Babel? Remains to be seen....
OpenFaceBook The Facebook Platform, launched yesterday, is designed to do exactly what MySpace didn't want: Allow for third party content. Facebook has opened up all of its API's in order to encourage development for its site. There are tons of applications now that are sanctioned for use on Facebook. So unlike MySpace (when they shut down Photobucket, which they now own), Facebook encourages open access to their proprietary network. Facebook has some impressive statistics on growth and engagement and with the launch of their video network could really give MySpace and even YouTube a run for it.
Why is the opening of Facebook so important? Better yet, is that the right move? After all, third party widgets could take users away from the site. I think that it is. Think of Facebook as Windows. If Windows could only utilize Microsoft applications, there would be some utility but not as much as if Windows could also use Adobe products and (gasp) Apple products. Sure, the third party widgets are going to lure some users off of Facebook's site, but in the long run, users will be more engaged, Facebook will have free development, and third parties will develop cooler things for Facebook (leading to more and longer page views for the site). Think Amazon, Second Life, Linux...all of these tools were made better because users and developers could plug in their own enhancements. From a marketing and monetization standpoint, this offers unlimited possibilities. Zuckerberg noted that Facebook was the sixth most trafficked site in the country. The ability to create embeddable widgets on a site like Facebook offers huge possibilities for commerce and contextual advertising. Favorite books, shows, music, and media could be purchased off of someone's profile page. Facebooks photo application (the largest in the world) could be integrate with an Ofoto or Kodak Gallery to provide for prints. Mashable talks about some of the applications already created for Facebook. The lesson here is that closed source does not work in today's open world. The music industry learned that, Hollywood is learning, and Microsoft will eventually learn that. If we can embrace our users and partners, then we'll hae a better platform all around.
Music Video Long Tail Ever since Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail came out, there's been a lot of news and buzz about it. Whether its the irony of Pirates of the Carribean setting a blockbuster record (since broken by Spiderman 3) or the reality of the Long Tail happening (Rhapsody, YouTube, etc), the Long Tail has become a part of our vernacular on the ability to pull up on demand any piece of content ever created. Amazon.com is already a Long Tail for books, iTunes could be a long tail for music, eBay is a long tail for other people's stuff, and Google is a long tail of the Web. Last.fm the popular social network music community, has launched a long tail not only for music but also (soon) for music video. Via their press release, "Last.fm aims eventually to have every music video ever made on the site."
Content creators out there can do nothing but rejoice over the Long Tail. After all, in the TV business, for example, while they make money on the initial run, real money is made in syndication, see Seinfeld, where advertisers are putting up new money for the space every time. In essence, Last.fm is providing a distribution platform for artists to be available when the consumer wants to see it. So, if someone mentions A-Ha's Take on Me video, you'll be able to call it up on demand and A-Ha (if they're still around) should be able to get a cut of the advertising served up against their content. Marketers should also rejoice over the Long Tail since content now from various eras or genres can now be identified. So, if you are trying to sell a product to a certain age group or demographic, music tastes could be identified to pinpoint that target. Radio has done a great job of that but no one has the time to sit through a radio commercial anymore. Perhaps, Last.fm could partner with Poptopus for a fairly interesting business model and since they have an embeddable player we wouldn't be stuck with the latest iteration of a revenue model that YouTube has come up with.
Widgets Everywhere!
Widgets are the hot new thing of Web 2.0 - everything from YouTube embeds to mashups to music players and so on. Widgets are basically Flash or javascript code that authors can simply place on their site and users can interact with them in some way (whether its answering a poll, e-commerce, watching a video, listening to music, etc.)
The e-commerce aspect is hot topic now on widgets since the interactivity of them and the portability of them allow for some really interesting applications. WidgetSense (coined by Steve Rubel) allows for Flash or javascript enabled Google Adsense to be embedded into widgets. Two new companies, Tumri and Mpire, (via Techcrunch) have announced e-commerce widgets. Coupled with eBay's widgets and the plethora of other widgets out there, it appears as if we have a widget revolution.
Marketing wise, what does this mean? Well, I think that we can now have those interactive, flashy (not Flashy if you get the difference), and interesting ad campaigns that we've always wanted to. Targeted and completely relevant to the content of the page, these new widgets are more catchy than Adsense and hopefully will provide more value to the advertiser. Time to rethink your SEM strategy!
The Final Frontier? There's been a lot of speculation about Web 3.0 and what that will mean in the coming months and years. A quick recap - Web 1.0 was simply push technology, technology similar to a newspaper where a central editor pushed out content to you. Web 2.0 (where we are now) combined Ajax (pages reload with hitting refresh, similar to Google Maps) with an interactivity feature like a blog, social network, or rating system with the first Web 2.0 properties being Amazon.com, eBay, and Craigslist. Web 2.0 has definitely made an impact on the current web with nearly all sites offering these features and valuations skyrocketing into the billions (see YouTube). The most important aspect of Web 2.0 though is the fact that it is so engaging that Web 2.0 sites are one of the stickiest sites on the Web and one of the most visited (behind search engines). Now if you think about where the majority of us spend our time it is on video games. Yes, even older women spend time playing video games online, since games include not just Grand Theft Auto but Sudoku and FreeCell.
So what's the point of this recap? Well, its definitely to figure out where the Web is going. There's been a lot of hype over Second Life (kind of a Sims like game where there really is no point). There's also been a lot of hype over video games including Sony's Virtual World for PS3 users. What about the combination? Hitwise came out with a report yesterday about how quickly virtual worlds have been growing and Runescape is #1 with 44% of marketshare to online worlds with Webkinz coming in a distant second with 14%. This, of course, does not include downloaded virtual worlds like Second Life, or the ever popular World of Warcraft, although I think at some point Web based games may overtake these downloaded versions.
The virtual worlds cannot be ignored. I think that we all like the aspect of the interface coupled with the Web 2.0 characteristics of real people that we can interact with. Brands now will have that intricate product placement opportunity ever so prevalent with video games, an ability to monitor dialogues, and a chance to see what people will create and do with their brands given a blank slate. Is this Web 3.0? Many think so. Many think that its simply a way of representing Web 2.0 in 3D space. I think that if its not Web 3.0 at least it will be Web 2.5.
Loving Google Ok, I admit, I've been bashing Google a bit on their quest to take over the world and its probably a bad thing because the traffic to this blog from non-subscribers will probably plummet, but I couldn't ignore the incredible earnings release last night as well as their announcement of purchasing a WebEx type company this morning. Everywhere I turn Google this Google that, and now with a market cap that is about half of Microsoft, Google is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Coupled with Yahoo's drop in earnings, Google is the leader on the Web. But the interesting thing about Google is that for all of the neat little things they put out there, nearly all of its revenue comes from Search. How many times have you seen someone fire up their web browser go to Google and type in the URL? I bet Google (or some derivation with a Google search box) are on 70% of a person's starting (home page).
That being said, as a marketer, SEO (search engine optimization) is becoming more and more important. The first three pages must be positive about your firm and its products. And if they are not, get a PR team and an SEO to make sure that they are. However, the beauty of Google is that it is a true meritocracy. Just because you are throwing more money at a problem doesn't mean that it will go away. If a product is truly faulty, and appears negatively in a blogger's blog, and is linked to many times, you will have a tough time pushing that mention off the first page. Wikipedia no doubt will be on that front page as well (if you are popular enough to have a Wikipedia entry) so hope that that has a positive spin on you as well. We haven't even spoken about SEM or search engine marketing, Google's bread and butter. Monitor your entries and make sure that you aren't overpaying for clicks that can be had for less. And while I'm not going to go into a whole lesson on SEM I think the most important thing: Make sure the landing page is relevant and ready to purchase. Imagine, you clicked on the link for the book The Tipping Point and it just brought you to Amazon.com's home page (where you'd have to redo the entire search). Sounds small but you'd be annoyed and you'd have a smaller chance of capturing that conversion. But the lesson today is that search is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives especially via Google (the numbers are our evidence) so please don't ignore that as part of your marketing plan.
Despite buzz about social networks, search engines still outweigh social networks in terms of reach and use
However, niche social networks are useful to reach a particular demographic and most social networks are regularly visited.
Purchasing behavior is somewhat influenced by social networks (this includes Amazon.com and Yahoo! Answers)
Most comments are positive, few are negative, but most people don't comment at all.
Interesting report, but one where our intuition really pointed to, which is before you listen to a marketer, you'd rather listen to a third party with no real vested interest in the product. Further, with a very small amount of people that are actually commenting or rating a product, you're left with a core group of activists that are driving a large percentage of ecommerce. Scary thought. The good news is that most people are fair and actually skewed toward product advocacy. The chart shows that a small amount of people are "Debbie Downers" that is, they just post negative comments. A few levels up are the fair folks, those that post both negative and positive - the "speak your mind" folks. And an even larger number are positive folks. Positive comments only. It appears that many net users follow what your mom used to say "If you don't have anything to nice to say, don't say anything at all." Good news for marketers. The scary part are the Debbie Downers, the makers of iPod's Dirty Secret, the whistleblowers, the Negative Nancys, etc. After all these website filtering mechanisms make it easy to find these negative ratings amongst a sea of positive ones. What to do? Don't ignore them. Don't delete them. Address them. Show your loyal consumers that you have nothing to hide and if it is your mistake, admit your humanity. Through this transparent communication, your product advocates will emerge out of hiding and champion your product against the Debbie Downers out there.
Another interesting point is what they call brand awareness versus actual conversion - Amazon obviously leads in conversion while YouTube does a pretty good job of brand awareness. Kind of obvious because you go to Amazon to research a product while you go to YouTube to view stupid human tricks.
, already discusses how small the world is when you can pick up your VoIP and call around the world or email or IM someone in India for example. With Agav's this will give you the feel of knowing someone without knowing someone. However, the video also brings up an interesting point that "No one on the Internet knows that you're a dog." 
