Archer Advisors partner Rich LeFurgy led an insightful panel examining what's coming next in interactive.

Archer Advisors partner and IAB co-founder Rich LeFurgy opened Thursday's "Trend Trackers Tell All" session by introducing the panelists: Tom Conger, futurist, founded Social Technologies, "which helps organizations understand the future through foresight, strategy and vision." Graphic designer Josh Rubin started CoolHunting.com as an online resource for materials that interested him, and it proved so popular that it became his full time job as editor-in-chief. Trend analyst Michael Tchong, "a great, great friend of ad:tech and the online advertising industry… spent 20 years earning a living at the bleeding edge of the consumer technology revolution," founding MacWeek, CyberAtlas and, perhaps most famously, Iconocast, LeFurgy said.

The five trends that LeFurgy outlined are:

1. Place shifting
2. Consumer creation
3. Web 2.0
4. Attention deficit
5. Simplification

Place shifting
LeFurgy opened the topic by observing that before the rise of television, consumers got much of their information from magazines like "Look" or "Life." Then that information-consumption migrated to broadcast television, then cable, then the internet, and now to mobile device like the Blackberry. "Consumers now consume media in ways that make sense to them," he said.

Michael Tchong observed a difference between time-shifting and place-shifting, noting that time-shifting has been around for a while (largely since the VCR). In contrast, place-shifting to video iPods and the like is relatively new, and is "part of the digital lifestyle which dictates that we move all our data to digital bits" and be able to move it anywhere. Tchong also identified another trend, "control freakism," mentioning a 2005 Arbitron study that found that "27 million Americans have a tendency to control their media." 

Citing Sling Media's Slingbox -- which wirelessly brings TV content to your notebook computer -- is "probably the best known example," said Tchong, and Sling Media received one of the biggest VC investments last quarter, with a round that reached $46.6 million. Sony's Room Link, costing "about 200 bucks... has not as much sophistication, obviously," as Slingbox, but is another execution of the same streaming strategy.

But, for Tchong, "the iPod is really the biggest placeshifter. iPod video plus audio." And he predics that quickly the iPod will "probably be subsumed by the mobile phone, which in my view will become the No. 1 placeshifter's delight." Following the lead of Asian countries, "we should recast the mobile phone as a lifestyle enabler," Tchong predicted, going on to say that, "we're going to see a lot more announcements like the TiVoToGo announcement a few months ago."

CoolHunting's Josh Rubin noted that, "seven years ago, the big push was converting downtime to uptime," with Blackberries, Palms and the like, "taking those moments when you were on the subway, in the waiting room, any of that downtime, and becoming more productive, more efficient."

"What's starting to happen today," Rubin said, "is that downtime is becoming the new uptime. People want those moments back when they can be entertained." The iPod and PSP help consumers to do just that.

At the device level, Rubin noted that "obviously devices are going mobile," and that "device manufacturers are working to squeeze a full range of features into a single device," (phone, music, video and satellite radio). "That push is going to continue for a little while, but the fact is that the basic user interface for a mobile phone is pretty constrained." In the near future, Rubin predicts that "people will go back to multiple devices," but that the devices "will communicate with each other better... in a move toward modularity.... A very simple example today is Bluetooth headsets."

Social Technologies' Tom Conger identified three prongs to the new ways that consumers use media. The first is "increased cultural flows" between nations. The second is the tendency of "culture to flow beyond its usual constraints." And the third is cultural portability: "If you want to carry your context with you, your world, your environment, you can... a Japanese businessman can be watching Japanese TV in NY."

Asked by LeFurgy about the negatives of place-shifting, Michael Tchong replied that, "for all the content owners there are big negatives," particularly when it comes to licensing fees. "As everybody starts beaming their content via IP, how do you count the audience that is not being counted via their CPMs? That's going to become a huge, huge issue over the next few years." But at the moment, "the numbers are, of course, nil," Tchong said, pointing to a recent Forrester report noting that only one percent of Americans listen to podcast.

"That's going to change as people get used to it," Tchong said. "The predicament with licensing is going to get bigger as people get used to it." He continued, "control freakism is going to offer all sorts of obstacles to us marketers," noting that some marketers are contemplating a move to "the five-second spot because consumers suffer from ADD."

Consumer creation
As the panel moved to consumer-generated media, Josh Rubin noted that it works best, "when there's both a physical and digital component." He went on to discuss Threadless, "a place where graphic designers can upload whatever image they create. The community of people on the site can view those images and vote on them." The winning designs are printed on t-shirts, and the winners get $1,500 plus a $500 credit for buying t shirts on Threadless.

Threadless is a powerful combination of "a community of people who want to get their designs out there," plus engaged consumers and voters. "And, of course, the physicality of it: people are walking around with these great t-shirts... It's a really great example of consumer creation that is facilitated by a website that gives it very level access," Rubin said.

LeFurgy then observed that Threadless is "a poster child for the moment we're going through right now," representing "the intersection of media and advertising."

However, Michael Tchong asked, "How safe is it for someone to advertise on that medium?" when there's no brand or advertiser control. "That's the biggest downside that we haven't quite figured out yet."

Tchong went on to talk about Garbage Scow, "a super-creative application" that uses the open API of Google Maps to show where the best garbage (furniture and the like that was thrown away) in New York is. This, to Tchong, represents "outside the box thinking... collaborative applications that open your mind to all sorts of things."

Rich LeFurgy asked whether -- as many proponents of consumer-generated media suggest -- consumers really are experts on media and marketing. "Is there a right perspective any more?"

Michael Tchong said that, "overall, I think it's a good thing for the industry. It can lead to a lot of creativity," when consumers have "access to the same tools," as agencies. "We're moving the professional level down to the consumer level," and it's good for "stultified" agencies to "get a prod from the consumer."

In contrast, Tom Conger noted that, "advertisers often advertise for a market that" isn't themselves, working to communicate outside their own groups, and that consumers might not have that same ability.

Josh Rubin has asked advertisers, "to allow me to have my readers create the ads that then go on the site" at CoolHunting. However, "no one has gone for it yet because they won't give up creative control." There are also difficulties with "the bureaucracy, the flow of decision making, and the concern if somebody creates something off brand. But, I still pitch it to everyone that comes to me to advertise on the site."

Next: Web 2.0, attention deficit and simplification

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