Web 2.0 The Matrix is Coming

What is Web 2.0?


The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design^[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.
-Wikipedia.com

By definition, the Web is a living organism which grows, mutates, and adapts according to the times and its users. Web 2.0 is just the second stage of it. In this age of the Web, we are able to interact freely with our Web, contributing to its growth and continuous state of upgrade.

The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfulls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop The Web will be understood not as screenfulls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the either through which interactivity happens. It will [...] appear on your computer screen, [...] on your TV set [...] your car dashboard [...] your cell phone [...] hand-held game machines [...] maybe even your microwave oven.

-Fragmented Future, DiNucci 1999




The way we interact with the Web and the way it governs our everyday life is astonishing yet frightening. As new technologies come, new ways of using AND abusing it are born. It is up to us, Web-kind, to insure the growth of a prosperous and sustainable advancement of our web-volution.

Marketing in the Digital Age is so powerful. There are so many tools at our disposal. The TV, the Web, and the cellphone are now becoming increasingly connected and at times indistinguishable already. The lines have become blurred. When someone starts watching TV shows on his computer via video streaming, and someone texts through his instant messenger account, you have to start wondering what the future holds in store for us. 3D live interactive messaging? Holographic calling? Who knows.

The Web now does not only live within the confines of a computer. Cyberspace is continually finding new mediums of expansion. Who would have thought that what people were watching on the 1960's cartoon "The Jetsons" would actually become part of everyday life. Video-conferencing, which was just once a figment of imagination, has now manifested in self in applications like SKYPE and Yahoo! Messenger. We now have the ability to control our houses with our cellphones. Our refrigerators can orders our groceries by itself. Our cars can drive themselves. It's amazing. So amazing.
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If the age of the Greeks was defined by Philosophy, then the modern age is defined by advances on the Web.

The Digital Marketing GAMEPLAN

Today, on EMARKET, I learned the value of good planning and research. Our topic for discussion, AWESOME PHILIPPINES, was a good learning experience in the sense that I learned how to formulate a complete digital marketing plan and learned a little bit more about my beloved country at the same time. I'm not going to bore you with facts you would find in a book on digimarketing but rather how a digital marketing plan can work for just about anything.


All the steps in the formulation of a digital marketing plan (GAMEPLAN from hereon), can help you attack just about any problem. The first thing in planning is "Know your enemy." ,in this case your client. You have to gather as much information about them as possible. Know their strengths as well as their weaknesses. This will help you know what you can use to attack or capture your target and as well as know what areas you need to protect or improve on. And remember DATA is the lifeblood of marketing a.k.a. Knowledge is power a.k.a. Knowing is half the battle! - G.I. Joe!

What's the other half you ask? Well its just what you do with that knowledge and data that you have in your possession. These are our weapons and the GAMEPLAN will be our well orchestrated deployment of these bombs and bullets! Know that you know what you are capable of, know what you want to achieve. Make a realistic goal. Don't set goals to far out or you will be doomed to failure.

The tenets of in the book Digimarketing by Wertime & Fenwick illustrate the steps we should follow to avoid failure. It provides us with a clear and well mapped out plan. It shows us what data we need to acquire to successfully create a sound gameplan.

The thing is with digimarketing, it should be constantly updated. Since the market it is after is an organism constantly morphing and being shaped by the times. What may be a sound gameplan today may be obsolete tomorrow. Digimarketing also teaches us to adapt. Roll with the best of it, dodge the worst of it. Today our messaging plans are mostly composed of SMS and e-mail. Just 15 years ago, barely anyone had an email account and even less had a cellphone. What's it going to be in 5 years? Holographic images beamed straight into our heads via a microchip implanted in our cerebral cortex? We can never be too certain. We should always be on the look out for the next big thing. One thing about marketing is other knowing our competition, we should always strive to be one step ahead of them.

I don't know how to embed a video here, but I want you to watch this.

This blog is not about digital marketing research and planning. You want to learn how it's done? Go read a book. Go attend a class. All I'm telling you is that learning this has many applications outside the digital marketing world. Think about it. It could change your life. ....Then blog about it.