OnlineSpin: The State Of Online Media And Marketing

Last week Joe wrote "Social Media Consumers Look For Best Of Breed." Philip Dorman wrote in response, "An illusion of total control vs. openness with the ability to connect: It's a straightforward decision to people like you and me. But it's a big ask for many marketers. Maybe the U.S. is more progressive than China on that one."

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 The State Of Online Media And Marketing By Joe Marchese It's not often we get to take a moment to take stock of our industry. The fact is, online media and marketing is so vast and is changing so fast, the task of looking at the industry as a whole is a bit daunting. However, as I have been preparing to give the opening remarks and emcee the OMMA Global Expo in New York this week, I have had the opportunity to think about what I'd like to hear from various industry leaders. From venture capitalist to hot start-ups to marketers and agencies to leading social and traditional media players, the online media ecosystem as a whole will be well represented. The opportunity to engage with all of these pieces in one setting has got me thinking; What key perspectives can each of these players share to give us a better picture of the online media and marketing landscape? Take a look at what I see as the key issues, and give me your thoughts in the comments here or on twitter @joemarchese (or, even better, in both venues.). Venture Capitalist: What effect does the current economic climate have on your investment in online-media-and-marketing-centered businesses? What, if any, commonalities have you seen in successful online media/marketing investments? Start-ups: What's working? If you are B2C, how do you plan on attracting and maintaining audience/attention in a zero-switching cost environment? What piece of functionality have you been most surprised at uptake by online media consumers? What's missing to make the online media landscape more manageable by consumers and/or more approachable for marketers? Marketers and Agencies: How do you define success with regards to your online efforts? What efforts are you making to better peg online marketing efforts against real marketing objectives? What techniques do you favor? What one innovation would most change your ability to effectively enter the online space? Social Media Platforms: What are you doing to empower people to improve/customize their social media interactions? Are you driving toward an "open platform" strategy -- and if so, how open would you say you are today, compared to where you want to be? How are you going to make the ecosystem work for the developers of applications that add value to your ecosystem? Traditional Media Publishers: How much has the line blurred between being a media publisher and being a media platform? Do you see a need to supplement high quality editorial content with other content from across the Web? Do you prefer a strategy for adding community features to your content-focused platforms or a strategy of better delivering your content to other social media platforms (or the obvious answer of both)? How have you executed either of these strategies successfully? What would you like to see in the next year? Of course this is just a taste of what I'd like to get out of the conference as someone who lives and breathes the industry, but usually only from one perspective. The goal for me is simple: having a better (read: well-rounded) understanding of the industry will better equip me as an executive, as a business partner and as a vendor. I think given the cross-section of speakers, we can hit on a number of these issues. I'd also like to hear what else we should be focused on. Comment or twitter your thoughts. Next week in this column I will give highlights on how these points were addressed. If your are at OMMA, say hi; if you're not, I will try to keep you up to speed on twitter ;-) Post your response to the public Online SPIN blog. See what others are saying on the Online SPIN blog. Joe Marchese is President of socialvibe. Online Spin for Tuesday, September 16, 2008: http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1387

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