eROI Days Email Agency

It’s Thanksgiving Day and it’s that time of year again when eROI makes its outlandish predictions for the year to come. In prior years we have given you a mix of business and personal lifestyle predictions, but this year we’re sticking to just the online marketing world. We busted out our omniscient crystal ball and this is what it told us:

Top 10 Online Marketing Predictions for 2007
10. Social networking will get more and more niche. Social Networking has blanketed the news for the past 18 months because it works. YouTube and MySpace have built loyal communities through entertaining user-generated content and great tools for communicating with other like-minded people. However, Social Networking is going NICHE. People use specific tools to connect, recommend, rate, and communicate within their niche groups. For this reason, there are many types of Social Media now and there will be five times this many by the end of next year:

B2C: MySpace, Facebook, Gaia, Friendster, Second Life
B2B: LinkedIn, Jigsaw
Search: Digg, Delicious, Wink, Technorati
Shopping: Wists, ThisNext, Woot
Expert Communities: Blogs, Wikis
Mapping: Geosearch
Video: YouTube, TurnHere, Splashcast
Images: flickr

Social Networking has blanketed the news for the past 18 months because it works. YouTube and MySpace have built loyal communities through entertaining user-generated content and great tools to communicate with other like-minded people. However, Social Networking is going NICHE. People enjoy specific tools to connect, recommend, rate, and communicate within their niche groups.

For this reason, there are many types of Social Media:

B2C: MySpace, Facebook, Gaia, Freindster, Second Life
B2B: LinkedIn, Jigsaw
Search: Digg, Delicious, Wink, Technorati
Shopping: Wists, ThisNext, Woot
Expert Communities: Blogs, Wikis
Mapping: Geosearch
Video: YouTube, TurnHere
Images: flickr

YouTube graces the cover of Forbes magazine and has a write up in Newsweek. It seems everywhere I turn, I hear about YouTube and MySpace defining the next wave of growth of the Internet. The Online Marketing Media and Advertising show in New York City had 20+ speakers, panelists, and breakout sessions over 2 days that reinforced this message at every opportunity.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky and other ad agencies are creating such compelling ads (e.g. VW ad below) and online experiences (Burger King’s SubservientChicken.com), that loyal fans are uploading it to Web 2.0 superstars like YouTube and creating communities around these advertising concepts on MySpace.

eMarketer published some exciting data on blog demographics and which group of people are blog power-users. Most blog neophytes assume that 12-24 year old MySpace users and “People” magazine readers are blogging about 50 Cent all day long, but the reality (from what this study shows) is that older, educated, affluent individuals are consuming and creating the bulk of the blog content. View the full article on “Blogs, Blogs, and More Blogs.”

Alex Williams in my office sent me this email. Not sure of the source, but it hits the mark

WIKIPEDIA

Benchmark: You didn’t create your own entry.

Perfect for: Filmmakers, playwrights, Ashlee Simpson.

When you’ve made it: No one has any idea that your best friend wrote about your “vast, impressive contributions to the modern cultural landscape.”

When you’ve really, really made it: You are no longer disputed for neutrality.

MySPACE

Benchmark: More than 10,000 friends. 50 comments. You are online now.

Perfect for: 12-year-olds, musicians, Dane Cook.

When you’ve made it: Your Top 8 is la creme de la creme of Bratz fans with saucy, up-to-no-good stares. Your comments cup overfloweth.

When you’ve really, really made it: You and Tom talk, like, all the time.

YOUTUBE

Benchmark: You’ve been downloaded 50,000 times and passed around more than a New York socialite in the Hamptons on a long holiday weekend.

Perfect for: That dude in Romania with the Web cam, comedians.

When you’ve made it: You are linked to on more than 100 different Web sites. The words “blog” and “spot” have never sounded quite so sweet.

When you’ve really, really made it: When your video crashes the site. You’re called to direct a music video.

TECHNORATI

Benchmark: You have more than 50 inbound links.

Perfect for: College students, Vanity Fair writers.

When you’ve made it: There is serious blogometric pressure. Serious.

When you’ve really, really made it: You made Cory Doctorow giggle.

FLICKR

Benchmark: You have been “favorited” more than 300 times.

Perfect for: People with hands.

When you’ve made it: You get tagged more than an NYU freshman on a highway overpass.

When you’ve really, really made it: You have just blogged your pants. You are not sorry.