Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

It's been another "freak out" week in the world of social media. Many companies are laying people off, but many companies are running full steam ahead... hiring more people, developing more mature features, and (gasp) finding new revenue streams.

I have been somewhat off-the-grid this week at the Web 3.0 conference, which I will be speaking at today. As cynical as some people have been about the title, "web 3.0", I was happy to find many of the news items pouring into my delicious stream are falling in line with the next gen web. I will spend next week going into my definition and more importantly, how it will effect your online experience, but for now, I will just throw this idea out there.

The next generation of the web, whatever it's called, will be more relevant.

What's Been Happening This Week?

We Are The Creators Of Ads
As brands are waking up to realize that social media is having a major effect on purchase behavior, the social networks are waking up to realize that they need to provide better tools. This week MySpace launched a self-serve ad platform that allows users to create display ads and target into very relevant niches of the MySpace community. Google instantly followed suit offering display ads based on the adwords platform.

I still think they are missing the boat by not incorporating actual social content into the ad, a point I've been trying to bring up in discussions at this conference. But in funner ad innovation news, did you guys see that Obama Xbox 360 ad?

More Relevant Roll Outs
As FriendFeed opens the floodgates by incorporating real-time updates, Twitter is working on an integrated search functionality that will make finding those elusive tweet needles in the twitter haystack much easier. Flickr's new homepage redesign brings your friends photo content into main view, but I'm not sure that will be enough for them to catch up to Facebook which has made photo sharing the ultimate social experience.

For The Video Obessed
SNL is getting it's own video website. Let's hope that they finally embrace the social, allowing people to spread the content far and wide, instead of being the big bully in the room. YouTube and PBS are letting people vote via video, setting even new records for the sheer amount of social media surrounding this election. And building off of the MySpace music platform, MySpace launched a new karaoke video function.

As I watch the sun rising over San Jose mountains, I am off to another day of Web 3.0 fun. I am excited to bring you back all my learnings and thoughts, and hopefully you will join in the conversation!!

Marta Strickland