50 Shades of Digital Marketing Gray
Something we don’t talk about much in interactive marketing is what's broken or perhaps on its deathbed.
Regular readers know I have a severe case of #FOMO about my industry and its insanely ascending evolution. As if that isn’t enough to keep my mind in overdrive, I am the same way about technology, trends, tactics and strategies that might have outlived their usefulness - or are ready for an overhaul.
So I put together this little list of things that I have been thinking about over the past month or so, but I really have no definitive answer to. What are your thoughts?
- Location-based marketing — do we ever talk about Foursquare anymore?
- Gamification of apps? While I don't see this as a dead medium, badges seem played out, and leader boards pull a close second.
- Why are people so interested in getting rid of email marketing?
- Why are so many agencies telling their clients to pay for monitoring and reporting when they don't know what to do with the analytics they have?
- Why are clients paying for analytics that they are not optimizing against because the optimization exceeds budget allocation?
- When is webisodic content going to really take stride?
- When will podcasting and Internet radio programming become automotive centric?
- What's the next form of content beyond the BIG 3 (copy, images and AV)?
- Will content marketing become yesterday's marketing talk of the town?
- When will we ever actually get actionable content from a social media convention?
- Who will attempt to dethrone Facebook? And with what?
- Is the new MySpace even on your radar?
- How can we make UGC easier for the marketing community to engage?
- When will Twitter give us more than 140 characters?
- What's the next in-app #hashtag-like tool?
- Will Instagram ever not be a square, or is the brand entrenched in this format?
- Vine — should anybody think of it as standalone marketing tactic?
- When will Google, Yahoo & Bing give social graph information on user searches?
- Why is Linkedin advertising so stupid expensive?
- Why is there no blogger ad network worth using?
- Why does a speaker have to have a book published in order to get a keynote?
- Why do RSS aggregators come and go with no real definition?
- Why aren't more analytics based on real-time API feeds to make infographics dynamic?
- When will fonts no longer be a browser based issue?
- What's next for social commerce?
- How can more bloggers easily monetize their efforts without whoring their content?
- Why are there so few platform agnostic social graph ports?
- To podcast or not to podcast?
- Google glass — yes we have to start somewhere, but let's get with the next version shall we? Daddy needs to watch football while shopping!
- How can more apps leverage crowdsourcing for real-time content while making the UX easier?
- Story apps — has anyone really got it right yet?
- Social scoring does not take into account real-world influence. Why?
- Banner bars. Really? Why hasn’t someone put a stake through the heart of this format?
- When is afterlife (AKA "Digital Death") social messaging going to gain popularity?
- Cyberterrorism on your brand. Who will be the first destroyed?
- When will Facebook introduce custom layout properties?
- Is "consulting" the new word for "unemployed?"
- Who really uses TweetDeck?
- How can social monitoring really expect to continue with absurd pricing models?
- Pinterest – are you really using it properly?
- What is the perfect amount of social distribution?
- Has any mobile app in the past year been that disruptive?
- Is Apple losing its magic touch? The brand evaluation would indicate no. But what does your gut tell you?
- Remember the app "Bump?" What is the New World business card?
- QR Codes – really?
- Will more brands seek to align themselves with entertainment directives (i.e. Red Bull, Mountain Dew, GoPro)?
- Is there a social gap present that needs a new channel?
- What are the next steps to create social fabric within diversified content?
- Educate or innovate actionable content. Which does your client want more?
- When will people stop writing numbered posts to gain readership?