It started with “Cookies” in the late ’90s’, the first little packet of data that tracked people online, tied in with web stats (those nasty log files that made little sense to a marketer and when we Web marketers spouted about how many “hits” we had…seems so long past.) Then Web Analytics started to take hold, Web usage increased, access costs declined as did the cost of the PC. Then Web 2.0 slapped us hard and we suddenly discovered our collective voices. Social Media was born.

People are writing, warbling and videoing left right and centre. Leaving a digital trail. Sometimes, as in the case of the New York fella fired for pics on Facebook of him at a party when he claimed to be at a family emergency. Ouch.

Interestingly, Microsoft today announced that IE8 (why does anyone use IE anyway?) would feature significant private browsing capabilities, as Safari already does, and Firefox indicated they are following suit. Then we have Avatars.

So I wonder, with the concept of Web 3.0 looming, will we eventually find increased anonymity on the Web? As we go online, will we have our “Web Persona” where we behave in a certain way, and then use an Avatar and privac settings when we really want to vent? What are the implications for marketers and monetization?

I think we’re heading that way. I wonder, how many of us will turn into Cybils?

Marketing Noise. All those tag lines, calls to action and statements that we no longer hear or pay attention to yet persists in so much marketing material. We’ve all “heard/seen” it – Super Blow Out Sale or We’re The Industry Leader – it’s on websites, business cards, brochures, email signatures, billboards, flyers, print and TV adverts…it’s like those companies that try to cram 50 key marketing messages into a quarter page ad.

I’ve had the privilege to execute marketing communications campaigns and strategies all over North America and into Europe and Africa…and it’s the same thing in those countries. Seth Godin is still relevant with the Purple Cow concept, but it seems that so many decision makers are comfortable not being heard above the rabble…just how do you expect to win new customers if you look like everyone else? Below are some of my favorite Marketing Noises…what are yours?

- Hurry now, this deal won’t last!
- Special pricing today only!
- We’re the market leaders in (insert industry).
- The leading global provider of (insert service).
- Special offer just for you…(and 20,000 others!)
- Act now or you’ll miss out
- Call today only for special pricing discounts (so tomorrow is no good?)
- This offer won’t last long so call today!
- Quality you can trust
- We’re better than the competition (you have to say that?)
- There’s no other like it (maybe for a reason?)
- To our valued customer (where’s that 1:1 marketing thingy?)
- Click here for great savings
- Sign up today!
- Limited time offer
- Learn more about…(insert any number of sentences)
- Reply to this email to get your free gift
- Free gift inside! (oh. yay. a coupon for something I never use.)
- Call today to secure your spot!

As consumers become the new media (already are to a good degree) then perhaps these “noises” will slowly fade away like Olde English? Calls-to-Action are a vital element of marketing. Like Banner Blindness, these calls have been used so much across so many channels, we have Action Call Blindness (okay that’s a little lame) and this may work against you instead of for you.

Okay, what are you’re annoying Bland Calls to Action?

I’m active on Twitter, Plurk and use Ping.fm to broadcast messages for my company to shamelessly promote it every now and then. I follow a number of people on Twitter including a number of groundbreakers and thought leaders in the world of Social Media (i.e. Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang, Julien Smith, Beth Harte, Connie Reece) ; it’s become my business.

Tonight I took a peek at Twitter Search (formerly Summize) and looked back at my posts and did a little bit of ego surfing. It was a bit daunting. Some material went back to 1997 and a former start-up I was a partner in, SolutionInc and even a mention of CityScapes…and my life since then. You just can’t hide.

Today, Social Media and speaking our minds, our thoughts, expressing ourselves, seems so immediate and so relevant; and for today, it is. How will we look back in two, three, even ten years from now and what we have said? Our thoughts and summaries? How many of us will start a blog and then forget about it? According to a recent Gartner study, the average blog lasts about 3 months. Yet the information there remains forever on a server somewhere. A little ego surf and “poof!” there it is.

When we look back years from now, will it be like our parents who tortured us on our first serious dates showing them pictures of us in the bathtub covered in suds? Or the old high-school prom dates in the Napoleon Dynamite prom suit? Will what we have said or though still ring true? So many of us are forging a path ahead and I hold nothing to the likes of Brogan, Connie and Godin.

These thought leaders and just us folks in general; how will we look back upon “today”? Social Media is a heady rush. It’s an amazing space to truly express the wonders of humanity in all it’s diverse cultures and peoples. I hope more cultures begin to share via the Web…but that’s another thought entirely.

How will you look back upon your past thoughts, Twits, Plurks and comments?

Is there enough data and information combined with population to justify business models on the Web beyond just selling and marketing? For a number of years, most VC’s and entrepreneurs, certainly most pundits, have focused on selling products/marketing to drive revenues. The most accepted business model has been advertising – because it produced tangible results in a measurable way. The advertising business model met the rules of economics in the physical world – that of scarcity.

Now comes Social Media. Conversations, and millions of them. Then there’s the abundance of Consumer Generated Media that continues to be created, unabated. It’s beyond a fad and being further driven by the creation of the Extended Web or the Evernet – through devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry. We just keep loading information onto the Web.

At the turn of the century we saw the rise of the ASP Market or Application Service Provider as it was called then. These were companies that put business applications on their own servers and charged companies to run those applications. The most famous and arguably the initial driving force of the ASP industry was Salesforce.com, who still exists to this day; successfully. A number of others joined and some have survived, although with the collapse of Boom 1.0, many of them also collapsed. Today, that market is called On-Demand and it is growing extraordinarily well. If you combine what all the analysts are saying, the SaaS (Software as a Service, also On-Demand) market value should be around $14 Billion by 2014. Seems highly likely.

But wait! This is not advertising driven? It’s driven by services. Providing data storage and access, or knowledge for a company. Then there’s the “Cloud”, similar to SaaS, but providing the servers and processors for companies to run their own applications on, rather than buy someone elses. or a SaaS company can put their application on the Cloud, avoiding the need as a Start-Up to buy expensive hardware and facilities and pipe.

These are other business models. Other job titles are being created as well, such as Social Media community managers, online relationship managers that are not just “sales/marketing” oriented. This means new economic models, new business models. Translated to the Web.

Seems, in just a brief look at economic models, that we’re shifting the rules, that it’s gone beyond just advertising and subscription models on the Web. Auction sites such as eBay also prove this and bolster the value of the Web and the truth that the Web is becoming ever more rooted into our society; at least in developing nations. It will be nice when it helps solve poverty and hunger as well.

So what’s your take? How are the models changing? Are we further validating the Web as an integral part of our economic models?

Change. It’s A  Brilliant Thing.

I’ve been looking back to 1995 when I first started into the growing new market called the Internet and the World Wide Web. Back then we almost distinguished them. Today, I think of it just as the Web and Extended Web. I was thinking back on how it was such a “free for all” in every way. Everyone was seeing the potential, and more and more people were getting online. There was a big hurrah when Business 2.0 reported that there was 20 million people online. Now there’s over a billion. I think we’ve hit the Tipping Point hey?

I’m working through a theory. Economists (I’m not one, I’m a marketer – not sure which is worse) always like to put activities and groups into phylums and classifications, which can then be broken down and analyzed through Micro or Macro Economics. We marketers like to segment and analyze – we have a lot in common.

So is the Web seeing a shift in economic groups? I’m working this through. Any thoughts? Blogger Shalunov came up with a good breakdown of Facebook users between Serious and Gigglers…it got me thinking.

What I’ve come up with so far is 3 primary market segments populating the Web, and I’m open to debate here. This is my thunking;

1. Social Web: This is where conversations ebb and flow. Because Web 2.0 is inherently interactive, the economics of doing business in this segment are truly changing from more “push” channels of the past. A business can’t “push” to the markets in the Social Web, they have to engage and converse.

2. Commerce Web: Kind of Web 1.0, but better tools and apps now adding the 2.0 element. But here is where we find the traditional Corporate Website, auctions and Craigslists, dating sites, books, music and entertainment stuff. This is where business models are settling down and people are making money.

3. IntraWeb: In other words Intranets and Wiki’s. Collaborative spaces and knowledge sharing and creation in closed networks operated by corporations, governments or organizations but only accessible by selected participants. These are not commercial in the sense of business models, they are work systems.

4. Extended Web: This is how we expand to the EverNet, through mobile devices. I think Smart Phones will grow the Social Web/Social Media and business models (beyond carriers) are still shaping.

So that’s my initial thinking…just how the socioeconomic models of the Web are evolving.

Newspapers are dying and we’re all on the Web now; laptops, desktops and mobile phones. Not. I hitched a ride up the elevator just now to my office and a nice, elderly gentleman was on as well. He asked what I did and I said it was around the Web…his eyes lit up! “Ah, everyone is on that thing now!” he proclaimed. I instantly surmised he was not. Then it got interesting.

He said how he was reading the paper and what would lead him to the Web was “this thing they have now, you can see all the earth, but now, you can look at the heavens. All on a computer…that, that will make me go on this thing…” He was so delighted, talking about that.

Two things struck me; the value proposition of the newspaper still exists for PR. An article about GoogleHeavens in traditional media is going to drive a fellow to the Web. The second thing that hit me is that those of us embroiled in the Web many hours a day, tend to forget the majority of people still aren’t on the Web, and those that are, are on for very diverse reasons.

It’s a humbling reminder that many are still left to get connected. That the “conversation” is only just beginning, and that the technology is changing. Meanwhile not all the rules of economics or business have changed.

I recall the early 90′s and Windows 3.0, I’d had to give up my Mac; there were just too many compatibility issues with software apps. That started to ease in the late 90′s and I returned to Mac; it was great. far less issues with compatible programs and there was Office for Mac. My department was all Mac in a sea of Windows and Linux.

It was, for a while, like OS’s were finding common ground. Market demand was dictating that certain apps be cross-platform. It made economic sense. A shift was underway. The along came Web 2.0 and now the CrackBerry and iPhone. Google introduced Gears and now Android looms. Products like Evernote (a great product) extend from Web to desktop to iPhone. So things should, one would think, be getting rather better in terms of platform compatibility and hey, maybe we just don’t need an OS anymore?

Perversely perhaps, it seems to be getting worse. To stop from writing a manifesto here, I’ll use calendaring as an example. There’s 20+ calendar apps for Linux. Then Lotus Notes evolving to Lotus Symphony, and then Open Office, Google Calendars, MSN Sharepoint and the whole MS Office Suite. Sure Windows is predominant across the Enterprise, and thus more than likely with calendars. Then there’s Web 2.0 calendaring services. More appropriately, there’s roughly 89 Web 2.0 calendaring services.

So we’ve got all kinds of Webware calendars for everything from task reminders to Web meetings and party tracking or just basic calendaring. Microsoft options (Windows & Mac), Open Office and Lotus Symphony and maybe I’m missing some? I’m sure I am. So let’s just round it up to a cool 99 calendaring opportunities.

What did you have 5 years ago? 10 years ago? Let’s not forget pushing calendars out to mobile devices and synching those devices and global business opportunities and family functions and visits…Calendars is just one example. There’s email programs, Web mail and such, presentation solutions (again,client-based Mac Keynote, Microsoft PowerPoint, Lotus Symphony) and then there’s about 42 Web-based calendaring options.

Let’s have a quick look at Office/Productivity Tools on the Web, given we’ve got say 4 client-based solutions (Mac, Windows, Lotus, OpenOffice) – these are give or take a few;

Calendaring – 89
Presentations – 42
Word Processing – 71
Visualization – 93
Email – 150

The Enterprise is, to some degree, safe for now. But people go home after work. They do stuff on their machines after work. They start and run small businesses from home even. Then there’s all those small businesses. It’s the beginnings of a market shift. This is where Microsoft and perhaps even IBM in this market segment, are at risk. The law of scarcity collapsing again?

I use iCal (switched back from Entourage) synched to Google Calendar and Highrise CRM and my BlackBerry. That’s essentially 3 calendar systems. So far it works. This is good. Please don’t schedule a meeting using Lotus with me or OpenOffice or Windows though…but you can send me Gmail…or Twitter…or Plurk…or identica…

If you call a sales department in a company one single assumption is made by the rep – that you want to buy a product. Now. If a sales rep calls you, they want to sell you their product/service. In selling terms, the conversation is essentially one-way, focused on getting to “yes.” Is the Web disrupting this process? What does this mean in economic terms? Is the Trial Close, Objection Handling and Cold Call Tactics of Yesterday truly becoming Yesterday?

Prior to the Social Web, and for most of Web 1.0, selling was based on person to person interaction. For many decades it was about cold calls and knocking on doors. The fax was the first intermediary technology that was essentially the foot in the door that started to change the sales process. Then along cam Web 1.0 and email. For the most part, things stayed the same. Sadly, business latched onto email like the fax machine (anyone still see those fax sales promo’s pouring through every morning? didn’t think so) and spam is still growing. Yet all of these tactics, as with most marketing is “Inside Out” – the message is being pushed and there is no engagement.

The word “engagement” is used a lot in Web marketing, but it is really about a non-interactive activity – meaning get someone to watch a video or fill out a request for a white paper. That’s not really engagement. It’s still one-way. It’s capturing a lead sent to sales to make a one-way call.

All of these tactics remain “Inside Out” because the sales rep is thinking only inside the box they have been trained in. Engaging in a conversation to discuss the broader issue and add value? That does little to help the rep meet the daily call completion quota or close deals for end of quarter bonus. A great post about Not Listening inspired my thought on this post.

When it comes to Social Media, and leads generated in Social Media, the current methods of “selling” just don’t work. A rep doesn’t understand that you may be gathering more information, that you want to understand value more and develop a longer-term relationship. Having done sales for many years (even as a marketer and entrepreneur) the best deals one does are the ones that result in a relationship that lasts for years. These are the result of conversations. Sales people are not trained for real conversations.

Sales people are trained by process. The only half-decent system I’ve seen yet is the Sandler system. I was trained on Learning International, developed by Xerox. Think of that; photocopiers. It’s Web 2.0 and 2008. Mobile devices, a very wired and wireless, increasingly connected world having conversations in many channels in many ways.

The Web is changing the economic value of sales. Altering the traditional “Sales Cycle” in ways that are hard to understand. Cold calling is dying. One-way sales tactics pushing you into a Standard Sales Process of Open and Closed Questions, Objection Handling and Trial Closing – it’s on it’s way out.

Apple released it’s G3 version today. Soon, BlackBerry will issue it’s Bold, followed by the Thunder. Nokia apparently has a new one coming out as well. The battle for market share is now in full swing. No doubt the iPhone is exceedingly popular. BlackBerry has really been pushed to step up to the plate.

As I look at this market, I wonder about the econimic value that will define the space overall, and the applications that will drive the economic value. I see three key areas for this battleground; 1) the device itself in terms of capacity, durability and life cycle, 2) the User Interface (UI) and is it a good UI? followed by 3) Profitability, not in terms of the manufacturer, but the user and the companies leveraging Smart Phones.

Device: I still use a BlackBerry and being a tall guy with largish hands, the keyboard of the Curve is much easier to use than the touch keyboard of an iPhone (I’ve experienced this with my Touch). Additionally comes the issue of durability and of course the look. The iPhone is much sexier, but Nokia and RIM are making some serious advances. The other issue is usability in a global market across borders.

The UI: This I think, is the major issue. Apple just has it right with the UI. The BlackBerry is annoyingly not simple to figure out, except if you’re an engineer. I’ve been trying to change the ring tone for 2 months. Apple has a much more logical UI. No surprise. One hopes the Bold and Thunder will be a significant evolution.

Profitability: This is where long term success comes in. Smart Phones are the Extended Web or the Evernet. They extend applications like email, Microblogging and certain office functions onto a handheld device, which in some cases can be connected to monitors and overheads. The more “productivity” that can be packaged into these devices, the increased value they will bring to companies, which could drive deeper and longer-term Enterprise adoption. This then goes to making the device a part of the profit equation for business and if it allows a person to have better down time, then that is Personal Profit, and that’s good in the 90-Second Economy.

For now, I think I’ll just wipe the drool and stay with my Curve, as die-hard a Mac user as I am, and as annoying as the BlackBerry UI is. Some major device changes are underway over the next 2-3 years and it will be interesting to see how they extend into the Enterprise.

The ubiquitous BlackBerry found in all places government in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K through the Enterprise and down into small businesses. No doubt it’s the leader. And it works. Well. It’s become increasingly easier to use, but still is more of a Geeks phone versus a non-techie device. The iPhone by comparison has a sweet User Interface and changing a ring-tone on an iPhone is a snap compared to a BlackBerry. In fact, a BlackBerry doesn’t even understand ring tones, and calls them Notifications; very technical.

With the new BlackBerry Bold, perhaps we’ll see some changes come about in this regard. From an informal survey of about 30 people, I found that few had any idea how to make any use of the truly powerful features on the BlackBerry. Most simply set up email and stuck with the factory settings for ring-tones and such. Even on my own Curve, it does wierd things and I’ve been trying to change the ring-tones for a month. It shouldn’t be that complicated. The UI is obviously an engineering hang-over and reflective of an Engineering mind-set of Function over Form. Apple and even Nokia recognize that product loyalty and success in these types of products comes from good User Interface. Make access to common apps quick, simple and flexible and you increase uptake and end-user satisfaction.

We’ve seen RIM push out a new smart phone with the Bold simply because of these pressures from other players like Apple and Nokia. Even Motorola, often touted as the ugliest User Interface out there, has taken drastic steps to fix the UI. In order to stay in a market leading position, I think RIM will need to address the UI issue and make the UI as easy to use and attractive as the phone itself. I’ve conciously taken a Curve over an iPhone based on one vital UI function – the keyboard. Having tried to type emails on an iPod Touch, the BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard is much better. They got it right with the trackball in the middle as well. Let’s hope they make the UI less of a Geeks Great Challenge and more consumer focused.

A change in UI may also inspire greater use of Web apps, bringing more commerce opportunities and driving more revenues for carriers.