Pub Talk
By Rob Yoegel
About Rob
Rob Yoegel takes an active role in North American Publishing Company's online efforts including content, sales, marketing, usability, functionality and vendor relations as Vice President, e-Media. Rob works directly with publishers and editors in developing a consistent strategy from print to online.
A former journalist, Rob has been involved in Internet strategies since 1996 serving as an associate editor of Target Marketing magazine, where he regularly contributed articles related to the Internet, including e-commerce, Web site design/development, e-mail, fulfillment, customer service and marketing integration. He also spent one year as publisher of PhillyTech Magazine, a regional technology magazine published by Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. E-mail him at ryoegel@napco.com or call (215) 238-5344.
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Stop Predicting the Future — You Can’t
Although eMarketer recently predicted that the total market for mobile text (SMS) ads will reach $1.5 billion this year, I’m not talking about an offer being delivered as 150 or so characters of a text message. Instead, the promise of something like the iPhone’s Safari Web browser on more mobile devices should have marketers really excited.
Then I started to think about how many Internet prophets I’ve run into over the past few months, all trying to either make a living or get on the speaker circuit predicting the future of the Internet. It’s really starting to bug me.
I’ll lump these people into the same heap as consultants and analysts. The longer they spend on the outside, the further they are from telling you anything worthwhile. I’m pretty sure that I could drop everything today and pimp myself out to small- to mid-size publishers and give them input on how to make their e-media efforts stronger. In less than a year, I would be out of things to tell them and out of people to tell it to. You need to live and breathe this stuff every day, and even then you sometimes feel you know very little.
Now back to the futurists. Yes, the next logical progression from Web 2.0 is Web 3.0, my 8-year-old daughter could tell me that one. Sure, traditional print advertising is taking a huge hit from online advertising, while paid search is highly measurable and social media sites like Facebook and MySpace may someday be the only way we communicate. Enough already!
Is it me, or are there more and more people analyzing, predicting and consulting rather than doing? All I know is that over the past decade, what I do for a living has changed a lot. If any of you folks can tell me what the next 10 (or even five) years will look like, I’m hoping you have something creative to predict. Otherwise, you may have better luck convincing me my beloved Philadelphia Eagles will win the Super Bowl this season.
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I like this kind of blog! Great food for thought. I read your blog regarding the Heimlich and found myself wanting to read more from you.
Now for predicting...What I believe is whatever a company does online must deliver relevancy. This might be old news but it should change the structure and job functions of the organization significantly. The next 5 years will offer much change but I think it will be linked to how well a company can bring along its current staff as well as bring on knowledge missing to compete in this new world of publishing.
My prediction is that traditional publishers who are still around in 5 years will have Editorial departments with both Communication Majors as well as Journalism Majors. There will be no such job title as Web Editors. The structure of the organization will be built on gathering container-agnostic content. Online content which includes ads will be databased, tagged, categorized and served up when and how the user wants it. For the Web the control will be in the user’s hands.
Things like digital editions (online magazines that look like a magazine) is a transitional technology and will be obsolete. I personally believe this is just getting us old folks comfortable with the web. It is a very exciting time right now, I look forward to whatever the future brings.
Milton makes the point very well, and I'd like to offer an addendum to his remarks: If we substitute the words BEST GUESS for the word PREDICTION, much more of what the 'experts' tell us about the future will be usefull!
Thanks for reading and posting, Robert, Michael & Milton. Love all of your comments. I will predict the weekend is here and I hope everyone enjoys!
Obviously you can't actually predict the future. What you CAN do (and what many companies have long had success in doing) is formulate scenarios using the same sort of methodology the GBN uses - http://www.gbn.com/ - we ignore this type of thinking at our own peril.
Read your piece with interest. For years one of my mini-mottos: When it comes to prediction, Nobody Knows Nothing!
Most predictions are based on some straight-line, serial view of events and circumstances; and they rely on a series of "If -- Then" calculations. The human mind is limited in the number of dimensions it can operate in, and the straight-line, serial line of thinking is easy and comfortable, works for us -- "all other things being equal [which they never are!] -- but this one-dimensional arena is totally ineffective for prediction because of the "Left-Field Factor" a/k/a "Around the Corner Phenomenon." Causal agents come out of nowhere and make the future what it is and will be; and existing causal agents that we don't know about, have no way of knowing about and are maybe even incapable of knowing about or, muchless, understanding -- all combine to cause "the future" to roll out as it will. So when it comes to predicting the future, Nobody Knows Nothing!
I have a crystal ball in my law office and sometimes point to it when a client asks me a question as to what will happen in a transaction -- I show them the crystal ball invite them to take a look, and warn them that it's out of warranty. Usually, market conditions -- numbers moving up or down or standing still -- will affect the deal. And so the hedge was born. But that's another story.