It was four thirty AM and the red-hot sun had just broken the horizon over Lake Ontario almost blinding me on the couch where I was drifting in and out of consciousness. A beautiful day for the Royal Wedding I thought as I reached for my laptop and logged onto the net in search for somewhere to watch the ceremony. I found the PBS News Stream and it was most interesting. No commentators just the real sounds of the street; crowds cheering, cars honking, as the guests and the Royal Family arrived at Westminster Abby.  I was glued to this “non-production” television format because it was intimate and social. The Twitter Feed was the commentator. “A sea of hats” “There’s the Queen!”  “No its not” “Yes, it’s the Queen, in yellow”.  I was at an online Royal Wedding Party with guests from all over the world and experiencing Social TV in its infancy.

According to a recent report by Nielsen there are some very interesting facts around the growing Social TV trends.

• In 2010 50% of US citizens viewed online video for an average of 4.5 hours a month – up 41%
• 50% of social networking and blog site visitors also visit TV network and broadcast media sites
• 76% of Twitter followers and 50% of Facebook users also view broadcast

Marie-Jose Montpetit and her students at the MIT Media Lab recently demonstrated a prototype of an interactive television platform where a central database aggregates video from sources, shares user specified data with social networks, delivers video to the users’ TV, and allows commenting back and forth between  users and the social network via an iPhone app.

But how well would such a platform be accepted by television viewers? It seems to me that guys are snarly enough if you interrupt “their game” and  that adding Twitter and Facebook updates to “their TV screen” would not be well received.  Well, there have been some interesting Social TV initiatives. ITV Lives’s (UK) soccer TV experience around world cup soccer garnered 2 million viewers in three weeks. The key is the second screen. Over 50% of TV viewers indicated they had a computing device with them when they watched TV.

The marriage of social, mobile and TV creates more than just a dynamic party, but instead this combination is a game changer as broadcast interactivity brings engaged viewers and forces broadcasters to completely reinvent their advertising models. Not to do so would be at their own peril. Because the push advertising models of the past are no longer wanted. Broadcasters need to create new ad models for Social TV.

Intro Now (recently purchased by Yahoo!) is an open source platform and available to developers and device manufacturers. It was touted as one of the more impressive Social TV apps. It has a technology that recognizes audio and identifies content. This content can then be shared with friends on social networks. Intro Now has a new ad model test going with Pepsi where people can tag a commercial and get a coupon for a free Pepsi.

Miso, another interactive TV platform, funded by Google, that goes beyond the Four Square facility of the check-in and sharing by adding reality TV voting as part of its platform.

AT&T is also active in the space and says that Social TV will allow you to see how popular a new show is, get ratings and opinions and general sentiment analysis.Verizon entered the space in 2009 with tremendous success. They offer a number of social widgets for Twitter, Facebook and the Associated Press.

Social TV is in its infancy but with TV consumption going up and revenue increases of 8% to 69 billion the television broadcast industry is again in the limelight. The key to IDTV success will be in understanding how to engage viewers on the second screen and keep them coming back. There are a whole lot of ideas around this but if you think of the many ways you can create “Fans” and communities around shows you are on the right track. In such an environment special content would be savored, relationships enhanced, and commerce enabled for advertisers through sampling and contests.

As the shift to online marketing continues there has been a proliferation of electronic channels that has lead to more meaningful and targeted ways to engage a customer. These advances have added pressure to the marketer’s role as it has become more challenging to deliver a compelling message to each consumer, at the right time, through the right channel, across inbound, outbound, on and offline and traditional and emerging platforms. Never before has there been such a need for online advertising integration as there is now. But what is integrated marketing?

IBM defines integrated marketing as an approach that “assembles all customer communications into one centralized command system that is continually informed in real-time data and intelligence”. In a recent study “State of Marketing 2011” over 87% of senior marketing executives surveyed expressed a desire for integrated marketing solutions but only 10% actually said they were having success at achieving it. Apparently organizational structure, culture, lack of in-house skills, and poor support from IT departments is to blame.

Online advertising integration is imperative in this day and age as it is the way to reach today’s new consumer.  Technology has had a drastic effect on consumer behavior. Take for example the ways we can source news that goes beyond newspaper, radio or television. We have online sites, search engines and social media, Facebook, LinkedIn groups, blogs and wikis, just to name a few. The variety of channel choices allows consumers the opportunity to immediately switch between channels before making a purchase decision.  This means that in order to have our products or services selected we need to be where consumers are.

It is interesting that in the emerging media like Social Media, North Americans outpace Europeans by over 30% in adoption rates. Activities are still limited to participation on 3^rd party networks like Facebook, and Linked In but nevertheless the Social Media channel is not being ignored. In fact 50% of marketers are using social media despite the fact the bright light that has shone on this channel is dimming under the scrutiny for ROI.

As we move towards the adoption of more integrated cross-channel marketing strategies and their implementation there will be a greater emphasis placed on ROI and analytics that can predict outcomes.  This is where the rubber meets the road in the drive to define next generation marketing excellence. However, if you thought Facebook’s Beacon was an infringement of privacy “you aint seen nothing yet, baby”.

One of the more significant product launches in the world of consumer electronics, the Apple iPad, is taking the world by a storm and establishing a whole new class of computer. “Magical”, “revolutionary” or, call it what you may, the Apple iPad provides value to all age groups. Apple describes its 9.7 inch tablet computing device as “The best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video. Hands down.”

I thought it was very interesting that in the line up to purchase the iPad there were several senior citizens. The touch screen and ability to change and enlarge type on screen of whatever you are reading online, including; novels, magazines, or newspapers is clearly a game changer and true sign that change has come to the world of the PC.

So what is the enterprise uptake concerning the iPad? Is it fit for business? According to AT&T there has been a surprising interest from the business community with one half of Fortune 100 companies using the device in some way. This includes companies like WellsFargo and Mercedes-Benz who believe that the iPad assists workers in being more productive. Email processing, approving shipping orders and even on the spot auto-finance are some of the activities being streamlined on the iPad by such users.

With over 3 million Apple iPads selling in just eighty days and line ups all over the world competitors like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Cisco have put in place strategies to take advantage of the tablet craze. Cisco has just launched Cius aimed at the business customer. This tablet works on Android, has a camera (which the iPad does not) and is on open source for enhanced communication.

In turn Apple is planning the launch of its OS 4.0 this fall which will address some user concerns with the lack of multi-tasking.

So, if you are looking for something to do on a Friday night perhaps a trip to the App Store might be right to order? There are some cool games. Check out Air Hockey, Angry Birds (a funny kids game), and Cogs to name a few. This weekend I am in a card tourney with four imaginary friends (but don’t tell anyone), and then watching a movie. In short, the iPad can be described as a cool and fun consumer device designed for easily browsing the web, viewing videos, photos, mail and books and very rapidly becoming a great tool for business too.

Bye bye dancing sugar plums, and to 2009. A big enthusiastic welcome to 2010! Surviving the roller coaster of the economic meltdown has not been easy for anyone but the silver lining has arrived as a shining new breed of leaders that are battle-tested, customer and product driven. This voracious collective consciousness is writing history with enormous speed. The focus is on community, health, job creation, the environment, innovation and entrepreneurship. The result, I hope, will be a more sustainable global economy that we can be proud of as it will benefit all people.

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner”.  This English proverb is a stark reminder that it is in a time of crisis, not during growth periods, where one’s emotional fortitude is tested.

Our evolving digital world presents four  interesting trends to harness for growth in 2010. These are Social, Wireless, Analytics, and Security/Privacy.

Social:

There is going to be a lot more advertising revenue move online according to Forrester Research – especially from the old Yellow Pages which has seen rapid decline in usage this year – as businesses embrace social media as a lead generator and branding method. By dynamically engaging content, including blogs, reviews, videos and the like, business owners are discovering they can build stronger relationships with customers. As such in 2010 we are going to see social media integrated into the sales funnel where business objectives and ROI will be measured.

In 2009 Twitter proved we had an appetite for Real-Time search. In 2010 users are going to help Twitter find its revenue model. Twitter is an amazing lead generating tool that provides a segmentation and geo-targetting opportunity not rivaled by anyone else. I would not at all be surprised if we see an alliance between Twitter and FaceBook as there are clear synergies between these two products.

Wireless:

Our cars are destined to become wireless hot spots which should appease the kids on road trips. However, the increased data traffic will put a stress on the 3G networks. AT&T ran ads this Christmas promoting conservation in the area of text messaging. Apparently 40% of their network is used by 3% of its customers who have smart phones.

Applications will continue to abound and will be available in the cloud and in cross-platform format. Social networking via mobile will drive a lot of the mobile app innovation. Augmented Reality apps aimed at integrating our physical and virtual worlds will continue to be enhanced to bring our network closer to us in real-time.

Analytics:

Businesses will increase their budgets (60%) using existing data and predictive models. There is an understanding now that actionable insights help generate increased leads, eliminate guesswork on allocated advertising dollars, assist in understanding changing consumer behavior, and increase customer engagement.

Security / Privacy:

There has been a 477% increase in the amount of Malware added to Ad-Awares’s threat list in 2009 and expectations for 2010 is that malicious attackers are going to move to the emerging platforms, like smartphones, and social networking sites to launch their activity. Because Hackers follow trends, IBM predicts they will move their activity to the cloud. Businesses and marketers must focus more heavily on monitoring this area.

The Next Big Thing is… an integrated 3D virtual and physical world that provides real-time interaction and commerce

A new generation of predictive technologies are emerging as vast amounts of behaviorial data from “clicks” and “search queries” are being crunched by powerful computers trained to mimic sales people. Online shopping has become truly creepy as moments after buying something online a recommendation is sent on another purchase – a suggestion for something of a personal nature you were only just thinking about. Yikes, how do they know your very thoughts?

Welcome to the world of Predictive Analytics and to sexy math where we are all naked.

Mathematicians at Cambridge determined that the perfect sway in a woman’s walk is determined by hip metrics of 36 inches and waist metrics of 25 inches. So what’s the perfect metric to measure audience and customer engagement? Well, we may have to wait in anticipation for the answers because sexy while attractive, is hard to get, and slow in revealing.

Predictive Analytics is a business intelligence process that produces a predictive score for each customer or prospect. It aids in optimizing marketing campaigns, website behavior, increased customer response, conversions and engagement. It is not dissimilar to data mining but concerned with predicting future possibilities using complex algorithums.

Successful personalized marketing relies on an indepth understanding of customer profiles and behaviors.This in turn leads to strategic insights and business intelligence where predictive models can be built to predict response. Response leads to the development of business actions such as cross-sell options, mail solicitation, or promotions. The results are increased response and lift rates at reduced expense for the organization.

Predictive Analytics can also play a role in enhanced operational and competitive advantages. With things changing so fast operational decisions often have to be made on the fly and under pressure. Predictive Analytics and smart systems can help with decision making, revenue growth, cost reductions, and strategy control.

In this complex world of ad networks and increasing accountability, Predictive Analytics and sexy math is clearly more than the square root of 69. It is becoming imperative as it turns Marketers into number crunchers. “Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master” will blow your mind with its 114 marketing metrics. Some of the basic metrics such as the cost of customer acquistion, retention and those related to channel management are very valuable.

As we evaluate the current metrics craze and its impact on the world of marketing we can’t forget the value of spontaneous hip swaying and the part creativity plays in influencing human behavior.