PerfectMarket

Web 2.0 Day 3, Today’s Lesson: It’s Time to ‘Reinvent an Old Paradigm’

There seems to be a prevalent theme here at Web 2.0 San Francisco. It is that it often takes repeated looks into the past to better appreciate the present.

Day 3 at Web 2.0 began with keynotes and an archival video (yesterday’s keynotes also included a humorous and topical vintage advertising film). This 1950s-era video documented the wonder and awe that came with transcontinental phone calls and highlighted the awesomeness that was the rotary phone.

Conference organizer Sarah Milstein explained that the archival videos were selected to demonstrate that even as technology has evolved, our human response to these technological advances has remained consistent.

It was great to see archival content used at Web 2.0. While it would be easy to focus only on what is cool or up-and-coming (the keynote that followed featured a helicopter flown via iPhone), these videos remind us that older content can be just as insightful and relevant as something entirely new.  Perfect Market is all about perspective.

Facebook probably has been the most talked-about topic at Web 2.0, and the keynotes this morning did not break form. Clara Shih, author of “The Facebook Era,” offered her insights on the burgeoning culture and psychology that is born from social media.

Much as Ben Huh of Cheezburger Inc. argued that we are in the midst of a unique cultural moment (as the more democratic internet culture subverts top-down popular culture), Shih explained that we are witnessing the evolution of a new psychology, a shift in the way we interact and communicate with not only close friends and family, but especially with those on the periphery of our social circles. “Facebook matters.”

An interesting and (insane) fact: People spend 22 billion minutes a day on Facebook.

What does this mean? To reach your customers, you have to be where they are: Facebook. (It was interesting later to hear from Rebecca Thorman, PR director at Alice.com, that she’d found her customers were on Facebook, while key influencers were on Twitter.)

Shih stressed that we’re witnessing a distinct moment in history when the web went social, declaring, “There’s a shift in the internet, where a new layer is forming.“

Beyond this  Facebook obsession, one theme that has been repeated throughout the conference has been “expanding your vision.”

Rashmi Sinha, CEO of Slideshare.com, explained how, in responding to user demands, the site has transformed from “YouTube to Power Point” to the “world’s largest professional sharing community.”

She stressed that success comes from “reinventing old paradigms.” This message is clearly targeted at the scores of entrepreneurs in the audience, but (as I blogged yesterday) this idea is equally relevant for publishers. If mainstream media wants to survive, it will have to reinvent the old paradigm for how it monetizes content, beyond subscription models.

Danny Sullivan shared his thoughts on Google and its oft-bemoaned “vampiric” qualities. In his keynote, he stressed that Google gives as much as it takes. While it can leach revenue from publishers, it also is responsible for driving millions of page views to their sites for free.

Instead of hyper-focusing on what Google is sucking from them, publishers would do well to spend more energy focusing on the good that Google does for them (i.e., sending them millions of page views). Opportunity lies in harnessing Google, not in shutting it off.  Sullivan noted, “As much or more than they take, they are giving back in traffic, for free.” The biggest issue, then, is “how to monetize that traffic.”

The last session of the day, “Behaviorally Targeted Advertising — Holy Grail or Third Rail,” included a panel of advertising industry members focused on the pros and cons of targeted advertising.  The panel was in agreement that targeted advertising is the future; trouble is best avoided by being transparent and allowing users to opt out.

Their discussion touched on important issues for publishers, who have a lot of data that can be relevant for successful ad targeting.

They highlighted that it’s essential to “figure out what audience to target, not just the page, and find what makes the ad engaging to the consumer.”

When asked about the future of advertising for publishers, panelists stressed the importance of categorizing users, via search, hyper-niche content and behavioral targeting . They predicted the future lies in more and more precise “intent data,” and suggested this is where publishers should focus.

An especially interesting (from the Perfect Market perspective) moment came when the moderator asked, “Is data helping or killing publishers?”

The reply?

“It’s not helping them, yet.”

Publishers don’t have the technology to monetize their data on a larger scale, an ability that “could help publishers substantially.” (Some do!)

Moreover, much as Slideshare’s Sinha advocated “reinventing old paradigms,” the panel stressed that publishers’ “mindset has to change,” that their value lies not only in content and context but in the consumer behavior related to that content (Intent Matters, Content Matters).

It was said, “Data is an asset for any publisher. They need to put it to work.” Publishers have to develop a data strategy, figuring out what data assets they have and how to monetize them.

— Lee Glandorf

Tags: google, facebook, archives, lee glandorf, clara shih, danny sullivan, perfect market, web 2.0, power point, intent data, slideshare.com, sarah milstein, rebecca thorman, alice.com, rashmi sinha,