2010-12-30T16:44:00.000-08:00

My Top Ten for 2011
Ok, another year has passed and in looking back I decided I'd do another look forward. In review, last year was a transitional year for most of the industry and now the traction of these changes are likely to take hold on the cold hard surface of consumer engagement.

10. Quality becomes the new quantity
Most everything we see or hear is measured these days. Twitter followers, tweets, retweets, likes, comments and so on. Does anyone notice that the level of engagement stops when the attention span crosses an invisible line? If you have noticed, that's probably reality catching up with your consumption habits. And telling people you have a zillion followers is a kind of reality, but does the largess of the number connote the quality of what you do? Or the fact that everyone wants to follow you? Now yes, there is always a blend, but it's not about you or me personally, it's about how the numbers are used. And what will be more important this coming year is how relevant all you see, hear, do, tweet really is. Media and content haven't worked out their relationship yet and the dissonance of useless information is shortening attention spans every minute. Better curating is needed by all kinds of publishers.

9. That sucking sound you hear: Agency Consolidation
Not a hard one to understand. There are too many agencies and digital services for clients to manage. People like to say that social agencies are winning over traditional digital agencies (really, traditional digital...?) but that's too much of a red herring to ignore. All digital agencies, some specializing in one area and other in another area, are competing. But what is hurting them all is too much specialization. The ROI of specialization can't (for instance) support social and mobile initiatives. And many times this past year and in the future months the two will be competing for budget. So what's a client to do? Well I could go on forever about that, but what agencies need to do is acquire, build, mentor and refine capable technologies and people that are all working harmoniously and are measure in an egalitarian form.

8. Take 5 Mr. HTML
You'd expect me to say "Flash is Dead" or that "Javascript is too hard" and someday maybe I will. For now I'll hold back. What is going to happen is that HTML 5 will start invading a lot of work. Some of it super creative work and some banal and purely functional. Again, this wasn't purely because it was better than everyone else, it's a device driven change. And yes it's Steve Jobs driven too. In the end HTML 5 will take a sizable share of the development work for new media and to what end only our collective imagination can tell us.

7. Group shopping therapy
Yes the billion dollar baby of Groupon is probably the first to come to mind. And the principle in itself will be the next phenomenon of online retail madness. What it has and probably will become is a natural progression in social media and online shopping. One scenario might be, that rather than buying through Facebook, you'll be linked through Groupon and do your own kind of collective bargaining with brands that are willing to be bargained with. Now Facebook may not like this, but either they adapt or adopt to be in on the group game.

6. Paying for it
The last stage of adolescence for publishing is upon us. What our "parents" paid for is now ours to reconcile with and it will be the inevitable jumping off point for the poignant and the popular in publishing. The NYT will be a paid subscription in the early part of the coming year and many others will follow. What will separate the wheat from the chaff of online magazines and news is how valuable they are to the reader. The paying for professional online content will be the true end of the physical publication and the public is ready to do just that.

5. Virtual acknowledges the physical
We've seen retail do some interesting things in the past year and in many ways retail is the last bastion of the counter-digital experience. Apparel retailers in particular have been the last to take the digital to the physical experience. And to be fair, buying an article of clothing is a highly personal and particular psychological experience for the buyer. Apart from the tactile what will change is in the service methods that consumers receive in stores. Best Buy has done an amazing job is re-engineering their model to the products and consumers through training, design and digital. Now digital you say, big whup! Well the interesting thing is that Best Buy didn't develop any new digital technology to change it's business, they just used what is out there. The TWELP force idea was one of the best things Best Buy could do for themselves, not to engineer the virtual world of twitter to it's wishes, but their customer assistants to the use of twitter as a service tool. Brilliant!

4. Location, location, location
We all know Foursquare and for it's lack of a stunning logo it has made an impact on social media and those who consume it. In the coming year Facebook will simply flip a switch and be at a minimum twice the subscribers of Foursquare and we may see an end to the first footer in location based marketing. For what FB can bring to the business community you can see some interesting things happening with Meetup and FB Places in coordination.

3. The year of mobile...again
Since 1998 I've been hearing that next year mobile will be big, and each year it never happens. Mobile has been the Godot of the technology launch world. Well I think the mobile era has finally come to reality. The android and apple platforms are solid well engineered and ready to change our world. Applications and optics have been the two elements that completed the mobile cake. Gone will be the short lived and quickly unused "app candy" that have been prevalent in this first era of smartphones.
2. White spaces will be filled
Mobile in it's eminent arrival to the vanguard will not be purely by it's longevity in the device game. Remember back in June when in the US the broadcast signal was no more? Well now your mobile phones will be on it in a big way. Recently AT&T added to its bandwidth portfolio in a play to win the mobile war. This along with other purchases will give consumers a lot more to do at the end of the arm than wait for a signal to come up or for email to download. The age of dial-up speed on mobile devices is coming to an end. Hooray!

1. Content and malcontents
Now with all this newness around one cannot help but notice the burnout that ensues when engaging in this new world. Understanding that the life blood of all these devices, applications, networks, widgets and the like is the content that is delivered through it. Our next evolution in the digital world is in moving beyond the simple fascination with new apps and devices and the true application of them in our lives in valuable and relevant content. Not the shallow mash of content banks that produce video information with no context or emotional connection. I'd rather read an encyclopedia, a real one.

So on to another year of change and adaptation. I wish you the best of all of what is in store for us.

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My Top Ten for 2010
With some amount of guilt for not publishing this last year, I decided to take some of the new experiences that I have had at TrueAction and take another shot at a top ten for 2010! And my usual snarky comments are no charge.

10. Beware the Facebook Killer
Big fish eats little fish. Facebook eats Myspace. That is the natural order and Facebook’s number is coming up. Lurking in the dark shadows of the development world is the next slick answer to the limitations of which we endure in social networking. Why? Because Facebook’s social architecture is too indirect in delivering value for advertisers and relevance for users, and while your friends might be nice, sharing pictures of recipes with them is like a flashback to 1995 when people said the Internet would be great for ‘sharing recipes’. Plus, the shifting sand of the user experience is making Facebook seem less fun and more engineered for a business model. What’s likely to come down the pike will inevitably be a lot more focused on filtered information from your personal network and much more relevant ad content opportunities.

9. The Instructional Video Glut Cometh
If you thought your search results were getting stale lately, just wait until the new onslaught of visual content from aggregators like Demand Media. Yes videos that seem to have the answer could show up high in your search results. Sooner than later, everything from a useful 2-minute video on cooking eggs with vinegar to content that looks like your cat started experimenting with a flip video camera. Though eventually it could be a good thing, get ready for snippet video to invariably start wasting more of your time.

8. Interoperability, Schminter-operability
For years we’ve been told that everything in the digital universe would sync seamlessly. Did that actually happen? If it did, it certainly didn’t happen to everyone. Our digital world is still mélange of moving platforms supporting too many applications that neither translate nor interoperate. Gmail allows you to consolidate your email accounts and companies like Silentale and Grand Central (bought by Google) group your twitter and phone communications respectively. But now that you think about it, that’s a group of consolidations. Maybe someday we can consolidate the consolidations...! Another ten years into the millennium and we’re likely to see a kinder, gentler, more compatible world but until then, ‘you need to get the update’ is the consumer’s call to action and the developer’s mantra.

7. The Great Mobile Phone War
More and more tech giants are stage diving at the consumer mobilestock, the question is if the crowd will clear some space in the mobile moshpit. This year was Google’s is executing a block and tackle strategy that takes the carriers out of the consumers’ decision process. This can only lead to other “crazy” things like better reception choices in major metros and, god forbid, less, stupid, competitive ads about more bars and less drops. My first submission for a Google tagline; don’t be a hater, make the call.

6. TV Goes Rouge
No, this isn’t a Palinesque-manufactured PR redoubt from which to throw stones at your opponent, this is a full-fledged subversion of contemporary network TV. Sites like Hulu are static and dependable destinations for premium content. More will follow in Hulu’s steps and idea of a scheduled TV slot that you plan your time around will go the way of the dodo bird. And if you’re looking at the ads, did you notice how they’re shorter? Well that is the new thing. Ad agencies will have to sharpen their pencils (and budgets) and get the :30 down to :05 if they want to sell an ad to a client. This doesn’t get rid of the annoying factor but it’s a model that will continue everywhere there is a screen.

5. A Marriage of Reluctant Heirs
Branding and shopping for that brands merchandise will merge in the digital content world. This may not seem new, but many online retailers who export that kind of content to magazines will soon get smarter about mixing selling with telling. Though this has been a bumpy road, the scale growth of user-influenced commerce is fragmenting existing expert sites. So instead of staying in the retail sales-pitchy world, retail brands need to be balanced and objective experts in their own right. So, that new bag you’re thinking of buying will have a broader and more robust community with a mix of opinions to help you decide.

4. Let’s Get Physical
No, not in the 80’s pop music sense, but in the brick-and-mortar retailer sense. For the past decade, the consumer needle has been moving in the direction of online for retail brands looking to make the leap to online without having to reside in the physical world. Now the needle will swing back the other way as the ‘Starbucks model’ for Barnes and Noble becomes the ‘new wave’ for retailers. So get ready for cookies, video games, free consultations, mobile phone charging stations and free wifi when you’re trying to buy that frying pan. All you need to do is fork over some contact info. Smart retailers will find ways to keep people in their stores, shopping-and-staying, in lieu of the traditional shop-and-leave paradigm.

3. Digital Eco-systems for Customers
A dream of the future we’re about to experience. We’re going to see a lot more conversion to ‘online enabled’ physical retail. This isn’t about gadgets, but more about how online and instore are interdependent. Though many brick-and-mortar companies aren’t willing to change unless there is a definite ROI to it, Ship-to-store is a reality for consumers today, breaking down the ‘shop-till-you-drop’ mentality. Wal-Mart is testing a online order drive-through pick up window to see if customers can handle that much convenience, shopping for the harried is undoubtedly in our future.

2. The Feedback Loop
The dimension of feedback from consumers will be a bigger than ever in the coming year. And yet it’s not all about merchandise-related complaints. Product design and development, delivery methods, and marketing communications all are candidates for critique. This isn’t to say that building from such criticism will take off as a ubiquitous strategy for retailers, but we will see improvements in how businesses listen to consumer feedback in real-time, whether the problem is complex or simple.

1. Retailer-Generated Video
RGV is probably the newest arena that retailers are congregating in that has a direct application to sales. We’re heading into everlasting brand traffic jam, where users are going to gravitate to more types of product demonstrations from retailers and brands with 30 seconds to spot. Companies like Toys R Us and Tumi are adding new videos to create context around products every day. We’ll see many agencies spring up with the ability to produce videos cheaply, and many product developers cringe at the result. Somewhere, agencies and retailers will meet in the middle to create strong, benefit-oriented videos at a reasonable production cost.

So, there it is. I hope you are looking forward to a very interesting 2010 as I am.

dorian sweet