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Rewind '06, Fast Forward '07 – Mitch Joel

We’ve got about two weeks here at the One Degree offices (virtual as they may be) before we break for the holidays. To wrap up the year in fine style I’ve asked some of the One Degree Contributors to provide us with a rewind of 2006 and a fast forward to 2007 to give you something substantial to chew on as the days get shorter. Mitch Joel shares his thoughts on the highs and lows of this year and what we can expect next year…

1. Rewind – What trends in Internet marketing surprised you in 2006? There were two that really struck me. Both have to do with how major corporations took interest in Podcasting and also in virtual worlds like Second Life. The fact is, that the numbers are not “there” yet, but big business is interested in the few people that are engaged in these channels. They’re excited about audio content (which is cool) and they’re also taking online virtual worlds seriously (I guess it’s not all Dungeons & Dragons types).

2. Rewind – Did you add any new tools to your online marketing toolkit in 2006? Podcasting was the big one for Twist Image. We did it for our company (Six Pixels of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast) and we even created a few for our clients (like Scotiabank The Money Clip). With what talk radio has gone through over the years, it’s refreshing to see people interested in audio content. Truth is, we love producing our own show and we love the challenge of getting people engaged in audio for the Web which is still primarily a text-driven environment.

3. Fast Forward – What do you see as the biggest trends in Internet Marketing in 2007?

Social Media. Everyone will still be talking Blogs, Podcasting, wikis, sharing sites, conversations, etc… This notion that all of us want content created by all of us that all of us can comment on and re-create will continue to be overly powerful. It will continue to truly muffle everything else like email open rates, banner ad clickthroughs and search engine click fraud.

4. Fast Forward – At the end of 2007, what do you expect we’ll be looking back at as overhyped? Video. I think video is Phase Alpha. The ability to watch moving pictures on the Web is very primitive and not where we should be. We’ll see that these millions of YouTube videos of friends kicking each other in the nuts grew tiring (albeit always worth a chuckle) and video will have to mature. My gut is that we’ll break down the walls of Blogs, Podcasting, flickr sharing, YouTubes, etc… and we’ll each have a central space that will be like a scrapbook. And, as the mood is, you’ll post images, words, video or audio depending on your mood. Imagine that 🙂

5. Fast Forward – Any SPECIFIC predictions for 2007? Buy-outs, bubbles bursting, records broken, reputations toppled, break-out companies? Does Twist Image count as a break-out company (c’mon, I had to get that out there ;)? Seriously, the big news will come around virtual worlds. Someone will get it right and take home a hefty bounty for it – think next-generation web browser. I don’t think it will be Second Life, but I may be proven wrong. I also think there will be the beginnings of a major shift in the search space. This will involve some form of mobile search and the ability to find things in a more folksonomy (non-hierarchical) based way. Hey, a boy needs to dream.