I’m stuck at Midway for a long delay, which means I’m thinking (thanks, Toby, for the shout out). So here’s a bonus post! Before I begin, let me say the best technology purchase I’ve made in years is this EVDO-RevA broadband access card. 2 MBPs anytime, anywhere! Love it!!!!!
(9:53 CST: Airport Update – A woman just watched the birth of her grandchild on my laptop. Airports can be pretty cool places.)
I had the great fortune of spending a couple of days at NXTcomm blogging. There I saw Cisco CEO John Chambers; Motorola CEO Ed Zander; GE’s lead executive for NBC Universal, Vice Chairman Bob Wright; as well as Verizon and AT&T’s CEOs explain their social media strategies and hopes to the telecom industry. The reality behind telecom and technology is that these many voices – handsets, infrastructure, network providers and content creators – are all in the same boat. They don’t know what’s coming next, but they do know that we’re at the tip of the iceberg.
The facts are simple. Social media has been fueled by a dynamic, increasingly open application environment (thanks to the widespread adoption of application programming interfaces or APIs), the open source ethos, and incredible amounts of bandwidth. More than 50 percent of Americans have broadband technology, and suddenly they can stream audio and video, upload massive photo albums, create dynamic content, and share it with social networks. Empowered with this dynamic content, users have taken control of which applications work, when, where and how.
All of the traditional powerhouses have lost control of content consumption, and increasingly its generation. In many ways the traditional technology and media companies’ role is to simply facilitate the optimal media experience for consumers and businesses alike. This means lots of bandwidth for full access to any media form and open development platforms with full access, anywhere any time. Users increasingly demand diverse media usage across devices (handsets, PDAs and laptops to TVs and PCs), and industries are scrambling to enable it.
To meet the anything, anytime, anywhere future all parts of the media and technology industries need dramatic increases in the amount of bandwidth available to drive media usage (minimum targets of 1 GB by 2010, according to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg), the availability of this bandwidth in diverse mobile geographies, increased functionality and openness of content devices, and finally open application environments and standards so further social media innovation will occur… And prosper.
In 2010, it’s anticipated that 20 users in one night will download and upload more content on the Internet than the entire country did in 1995 (a cute Chambers stat). Think about that.
So what does that mean for marketers? For one thing, the participation is marketing principles outlined in this book will accelerate dramatically with increased bandwidth, functionality and applications.
The realities of today’s environment is that 50 percent broadband penetration at 500kbps to 2 Mbps has barely made user generated video the new hot application for Americans. Imagine what four more years of technological and social media application development combined with a 5000 percent increase in bandwidth will do. Not just at the home, but on ubiquitous wireless networks throughout the world.
Wow. Wireless. Location-based content. Video. And what else? Get ready for the ride because marketing’s going to change even more. I’m excited.
Geoff – Thanks for the recap. Your experience at Midway, watching the birth of a stranger’s grandchild with the grandmother on your computer, is an explanation point to this post. Marketers who think social media and ‘participation marketing’ is a fad might want to listen to their customers more carefully.
Great post Geoff! There is a sense of excitement around social media and possibilities of the future. It’s fun following the trends and reading the many posts on social media.
Thanks, it was quite an event. I am still processing a lot of what was said.