Happy B-Day To Us: 10 Biggest Digital Media & Marketing Topics Over the Last Year

By Kyle Austin

By Kyle Austin

Just as Google celebrated its 10th B-Day over the weekend, we celebrated our 1st B-Day (albeit to slightly less fanfare). So while gloating that we share our September 27 birthday with the Montain View giant (as long as they don’t switch it again); I took a look back at our 250 posts over the last year to define the ten biggest stories which occurred at the intersection of marketing, media and the Internet.  Did I miss anything or should I move some stories around?

#10) Facebook Beacon: “Once every hundred years media changes,” declared Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on November 6 of last year, while launching its Beacon advertising system. His message was meant to declare that advertising is a social experience online and Facebook would leverage this to forever change the landscape of marketing and advertising. It was an admirable goal and Facebook was on the right track. The holy grail of the next generation ad network is intelligently engaging in brand discussion and behaviorally targeting individuals at every touch point in their lives. However, Zuckerberg and Facebook made some missteps along the way with its targeting technology, which led to severe media and PR backlash. The result? Marketers and advertisers dropped out, Beacon’s targeting was questioned and the next generation of online marketing was delayed.

#9) Murdoch Re-shapes the Wall Street Journal into a Bizzaro New York Times: With Rupert Murdoch finalizing his bid to acquire Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal a month before we kicked off RaceTalk last year, it became part of our regular conversation. In late April, Murdoch made his biggest power play to-date, by pushing out managing editor Marcus Brauchli. He then took aim at relaunching the WSJ.com and launched the quarterly WSJ magazine. Today’s Wall Street Journal doesn’t resemble the business daily that it did at this time last year. Business coverage on the front page of the Wall Street Journal was down more then 50 percent (before the market crisis) - leaving marketing, advertising and PR managers to reassess their relationships with the outlet, which now resembles a conservative New York Times.

#8) Mainstream Media Goes Social: Fast Company was the first major print outlet to take the jump by completely changing its online site into a social community in February. Over the last two-months three other major outlets have blended social community with their online publications including the New York Times with “Times People,” BusinessWeek with Business Exchange and the Wall Street Journal with its Journal Community. With this new ability to be part of the real-time editorial conversation (within the online walls of these publications) - marketers and communication’s executives have a new window into story creation.

#7) Facebook, iPhone, Widgets & Applications Everywhere: While the iPhone 3G and the introduction of the GPhone has not sparked a surge in advertising spend for mobile devices, it has made advertising a common aspect of the mobile experience (77 million users in the U.S. report seeing advertising on their mobile device in Q2 of this year, according to Nielson). The fully readable Web experience, which the iPhone provides, allows marketers to target users in the way they target Web traffic. More importantly, it provides a bigger current opportunity with the application and widget market, which was originally spawned by Facebook opening up its site to developers in May of last year. Widget and application marketing isn’t just for start-ups looking to create buzz. Major corporations like Wal-Mart and eBay have launched successful “widget marketing campaigns.”

#6: I Blog, You Blog, We All Blog: According to the latest Technorati “State of the Blogosphere”report, 95 of the top 100 newspapers now have reporter blogs. In the month of August alone, 77 million unique visitors from the US visited a blog. Any “old media,” types hoping that we may revert back to the olden days of media better look for a new job. If you, your media outlet or even your Fortune 500 corporation isn’t blogging or creating original content – you’re way behind.

#5 We All Get Green: As Ben followed closely throughout the year, all organizations were rushing to get their green marketing message down to incorperate into their Website or perhaps a micro-site. In fact, so many people were jumping on the green marketing message that many questioned if it was even a competitive advantage anymore. However, some organizations like Marriott understood that the green message needed to be part of a bigger corporate strategy around sustainability, which can have immediate and future bottom-line business benefits. A strategy and message that has real “staying” power.

#4) The Viral Video Goes Mainstream: Whether it was Barack Obama, Kanye West, Jerry Seinfeld & Microsoft, Stride Gum or Sarah Palin - everyone seemed to be part of the growing world of viral videos. Slate’s new online business magazine TheBigMoney.com, even has a feature that is called “YouTube Brandwatch,” which analyzes “how the world’s best-known businesses, so adept at managing their images offline, are being perceived online, where control is harder to come by.”

#3) Big Business Harnesses the Power of the Crowds: Just as the mainstream media finally agreed to relinquish some control to the power of the crowds, “big business” appeared to be harnessing the same approach. While monitoring customers’ opinions online has been fairly common for years, this year marked the first time that major corporations leveraged Web 2.0 technology to launch their own social networks in an effort to incorporate customer ideas into corporate strategy. Michael Dell and Dell was one major corporation to take the leap by launching IdeaStorm. The idea, simplified: “Harness consumer feedback and ideas on current products, build better products in the future.” Starbucks took a similar approach with “My Starbucks Idea,” to harness consumers’ thoughts on services and products within its coffee shops.

#2) Microsoft Bids for Yahoo!; Yahoo! Goes with Google: Arguably the second biggest and most covered business-related news story of the year (not including anything that has been a part of the current Wall Street meltdown). At first the deal appeared to signify the start of a cold war between Microsoft and Google. The failure of Microsoft to close the deal, which led to Yahoo!’s partnership with Google – Now poses a looming question in D.C -“Is Google Monopolizing Monetization on the Internet?” Marketers, advertisers and publishers seem to be leaning towards “yes” in answering that question and the future of advertising on the Internet may hang in the balance.

#1) Twitter: The adoption rate has been freakish and so has the media coverage and usage. At first we laughed at its importance and then we marveled at the tools which were following in its path. Now, it’s the storyline of a new CNN show and has kicked off the idea of Web 3.0 or the “Live Web.” For marketers and communication’s executives it points to the new battle ground of “brand management,” which has become a major bullet point on our job descriptions. For consumers it represents a new way to take control of the media conversation. For media it finally leverages the idea of “crowd sourcing.” It is even reshaping the way we discuss and gauge presidential debates.

1 comment September 29th, 2008

Q&A with “Medicine 2.0″ Blogger Bertalan Meskó

By Ginger Lennon

RaceTalk recently connected with Bertalan (Berci) Meskó, a “Medicine 2.0″ enthusiast, active Twitter member, and up-and-coming medical mind who takes a look at the intersection of medicine, genetics and Web 2.0 on his award-winning blog, ScienceRoll. Among his many achievements, Berci is also a last-year medical student with a goal of becoming a clinical geneticist that specializes in personalized genomics. Below, Berci has given us some insight into the work he is doing, resources and tips for PR professionals, and a few best practices for engaging in healthcare and medical social media conversations and communities.

Q: How would you define Medicine 2.0?

Web 2.0 is changing the way medicine is practiced and healthcare is delivered. When we focus on the changes in medical education and communication between patients and physicians, we refer to it as medicine 2.0. When the healthcare system and on-line support groups are in focus, we refer to it as health 2.0. Actually, there is a new term, evidence-based web 2.0 originated from the evidence-based concept that is the main approach in medicine. As Dean Giustini said, it means the integration of the best available evidence of social software use in promoting effective time and information management skills in the digital age.

Q: What are a few sites, communities or resources you would recommend for a medical or healthcare company looking to get involved in Web 2.0?

There is a huge collection of medicine 2.0 services and sites on my blog and in the Medical Education Evolution community, we’re also working on a database containing useful links and tools of medicine and health 2.0.

But if I have to share some sites with people and companies who would like to know more about web 2.0, I would say they should follow our blog carnival; the blog of Clinical Cases and Images; the UBC Health Library wiki; the Second Life health events of the Ann Myers Medical Center and many more health-related blogs.

Q: Do you have any basic guidelines or tips for companies that want to participate in Web 2.0 healthcare communities?

It depends on what kind of communities they plan to participate in. The main approach here is not to create something similar to what others are already doing. There are more and more scientific community sites and plenty of them are based on the same concept which is not a good idea when you want to attract people to take part in constructing your community. I think these companies must come up with a unique idea; must be open to collaborate with and respect quality bloggers; should use the power of web 2.0 to promote their projects instead of sending impersonal PR letters everywhere. David Rothman, one of the best medical librarian bloggers, has recently written about this issue and had some tips for PR people.

Q: What is some advice you would offer for PR people engaging in conversation on behalf of their clients, who are working to raise awareness about medical products or services within a Web 2.0 healthcare community?

Even if many bloggers tend to think PR letters are useless, I think it is a good way to discover a new medical service. But to be honest, when I receive an e-mail from a PR person and it doesn’t start with a personal welcome message, I click on the delete button immediately. If they want me to promote a new service (which can be beneficial for me too as I can get interesting content) at least they should find out more about that particular blogger.

Of course, newspapers are the main channels to promote new services, but take a look at some blogs such as Medgadget.com or WSJ Health and how many visitors they regularly have. Quality health bloggers should be taken seriously.

Q: Where do you see the future of healthcare and medicine heading? Are there trends we should watch for?

I believe, the Medical Education Evolution community can change radically the way medical education is organized these days. Education should not be traditional while practicing medicine is changing rapidly. There are three trends we should follow.

I would say, Jay Parkinson and his on-line medical practice (hellohealth.com) are on one side of the river of medicine. He revolutionized the way medicine is practiced by having a laptop and a car and being without a staff or an office.

On the other side of the river, there are e-patients who would like to communite with their doctors on-line, who would like to find information about their medical conditions on-line and do a search for the name of their doctor in Google. A good example is Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald who blogs about his medical condition, shares messages on Twitter, images on Flickr and X-rays on Slideshare.

Between them, there should be a bridge which, I hope, Webicina will be. Webicina.com is the first medicine 2.0 service which aims to help physicians enter the web 2.0 era with personalized packages, on-line image building solutions and e-courses.

The reason why I’m saying medicine will change a lot in the next few years is not the power (or bubble) of web 2.0, but the needs and expectations of e-patients. They will change the way medicine is practiced and healthcare is delivered. And physicians of the 21st century should be open and qualified to meet these challenges.

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Thank you, Berci for your time! To learn more, visit RaceTalk’s sister blog Diagnosis PR, where Berci has answered a few more questions for us about the future of medicine, virtual learning, and scientific and medical social media tools.

3 comments September 29th, 2008