The hippie web is dead and now comes the money web.
Yesterday, I gave a talk the other day for a global investment firm. Straight up, I told them that the hippie web has died and that it’s now time to prepare for the money web.
The investment firm had flown in the chief strategists from SOMO, Rapp, Quibit, Forward, and Whispr Group. What we all had in common, besides representing different types of digital agencies (mobile, digital advertising, conversion, search and social), we were all emphasising the extreme importance of data driven marketing[note]Being the youngest chief strategist by ten years or so, listening to senior industry colleagues from around the world strengthened my belief that all marketing efforts should be digital first.[/note].
Focusing on digital first (instead of traditional branding, marketing, and PR activities) will continue to be paramount. I went into these talks with the following unedited notes:
Here are my unedited notes from our talks:
From all of this, I can see two clear trends emerging — and they’re heading straight for each other.
Trend A: The late majority is spending more and more money via online transactions.
Trend B: The technology for online transactions is rapidly innovated and enhanced.
As these two trends collide, we’ll be sure to see some spectacular effects of this emerging money web.
The money web will also be a stark contrast to the hippie web. The IT bubble from twelve years ago paved the way for a more relationship-oriented internet where social networks became the dominating force in 2007-2008. Now, about five years later, I predict that we will see a clear shift in focus from attracting interest to more aggressive forms of monetisation.
It will be a land grab between emerging and traditional companies. And the emerging companies will win.
I’ve argued before here on the blog about how well positioned Amazon is in this race. Companies like Google, Facebook and Apple must also be considered well prepared for the money web.
On the subject, I think L2 is doing a great job with real and substantial insights into the digital macro statistics, data that will impact industry bottom lines as well as shareholder value. And the impact is here for us to see now.
Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash.
