80 / 20 Rule Flip #2: All Media and Advertising Will Be Connected to the Web
This is part 2 of a series of posts called Advertising’s 80 / 20 Rule is Flipping. See all posts.
Let’s start with a little breakdown.
The argument that ‘all media and advertising will be connected to the web’ holds two distinct yet interdependent arguments:
- The web will provide the 2-way connectivity that delivers, manages and reports on media and ads because all ads will be digital ads.
- All ads will have a web life to them in flows of information — display, remix, conversation — and in the archive of information — search indexes, web pages, links. They will all be on the web. They will all be on the web for good.
The first argument is that media and advertising will use the enabling technical architecture of the web (the Internet). The second argument is about the practical outcomes of using the web.
The second results from the first, so let’s tackle the first first.
To understand the technical architecture of the web, how it originated and why it wins, read the rise of the stupid network by David Isenberg.
The Internet is the best communication technology we’ve yet invented — the cheapest, the most capable, the most durable and most adaptable. Using any alternative communication technology needs to be justified.
Good reasons exist to use other communications technologies — security, control, legacy, transport — but those reasons are steadily eroding. See: WANs and VPNs.
And so if we agree that all media and advertising will be be digital, then digital means connected. And Connected means the Internet and the web.
And using the web some specific outcomes become very probable, which is the second part of ‘all media and advertising will be connected to the web.’
The key, key, key thinking and reading here is Better Than Free by Kevin Kelly. The Internet is a copy machine.
So what happens once all media and advertising is digital and connected to the web?
- Everything is read / write. Anyone can control it as much as anyone else.
- Everything is point-to-point. Meaning can be made at the edges as a negotiation between sender and receiver.
- All end points can be 2-way touchpoints. Interfaces to send, make meaning and feed back data.
- Everything is deconstructed in transfer and reconstructed at the edge. The atomic units reform in reception but have no form in transfer.
- It all happens in real time, all the time.
Sounds a little scary? It’s not too bad. Already, we can see some all-digital, all-web chracteristics in outcomes like:
- Multiple concurrent media use and cross-media use.
- Audience timeshifting and device shifting of media.
- Media remix and DIY culture.
- A breakdown of the barriers — between professionals and amateur, between publisher and advertiser, between media types.
It’s change, which is a little scary, and it’s accellerating change, which is scarier. Digital technology married to the connections of the web simply supercharges these outcomes.
So what we often see as discreet technical changes driven by product features — iPhones playing videos and browsing maps, Tivo and PVRs replaying TV shows and skipping commercials, user-generated content on blogs and YouTube, crowdsourcing — we need to begin to see as together forming a larger change driven by human nature and enabled by technology.
What will that mean for media and advertising?
Hold your horses. We’re getting there.
Next: 80 / 20 Rule Flip #3: All media and advertising will be managed by software.
Tags:
80 / 20 flip, 80 / 20 Rule Flip, Advertising, Better Than Free, blogs, Crowdsourcing, David Isenberg, digital, Internet, iphone, kevin kelly, media, stupid network, The Internet is a copy machine, The Rise of the Stupid Network, Tivo, user generated content, VPNs, WANs, web
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