Fancy new technologies; tablet evolution
I was a digital marketer way back in the Internet Gold Rush of the Late '90s, and let me tell you, sonny, those were some hard times. We didn't have any of this multi-device gimcrackery or geotargeting flim-flam. In those days, the internet was steam-powered, and if you wanted to launch a banner campaign (which is what we called display ads back then), you first had to fetch enough water and split enough wood to heat up the boiler that pushed your ads through the series of tubes. That's why the ads were so damn small.
Digital marketers today don't know how good they've got it, so I'm here to tell you. Just sit a spell and let me spin a yarn about all the fancy new technologies and trends you have to look forward to in 2011. "But old timer," you'll say, "don't these new year predictions usually come out, oh, I don't know, in the new year? It's early March already." Hush your insolence, youngster. I've been busy fortifying my cabin in the woods for this android invasion I keep reading about. If you're smart, you will too. Now here's what else you have to look forward to:
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Tablet computing
A year ago, almost no one had ever used a tablet. By the end of 2011, Gartner predicts there will be 55 million tablets in use worldwide. Most of the growth to date has been driven by the iPad alone, but something on the order of 40 new tablets are expected to enter the market this year. Has any single computing device ever grown faster? Let me look that up on my tablet.
Marketers have been caught a little flat-footed by this growth. While many of us are still struggling with developing unique mobile experiences, we're now dealing with a mobile touch-screen experience on a much bigger canvas. At the outset, busy marketers will be tempted to simply migrate their mobile interfaces onto the new devices, but that won't do. For starters, it's not all about the app. Tablets make mobile browsing more convenient, which makes consumers more likely to interact with brands through tablet browsers, provided the touch-screen experience is a good one. Is your site tablet-optimized? We've got our work cut out for us.
