Barry Lee Cummings speaking at the DIC Excellence Series – Web 3.0
On Wednesday of last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Dubai Internet City Excellence Series.. The subject of the presentation was Why Companies Fail Online and it was used as a chance to really show companies the gap between where they are now and where they should be.
As usual for events here, we had about 140 people actually sign up for the event and in the end, the room was full with about 60 people.
With only an hour to present, the presentation was condensed significantly and took people on a whistle stop tour of what’s happening on line, where most companies are right now and what they can do to focus on getting their online presence right, for their market, for them and for the long term success of their business.
This was a great opportunity to introduce the topic of Web 3.0 and the semantic web to the region. No one is really talking about this shift that is going on, and so the presentation very briefly alluded to the semantic web and the fact that this next stage of evolution is not that far away. In fact, it’s already here.
As I usually do, I started with some figures. I had to actually double check them before I put them up, as I was actually having a hard time believing that I had got them right. But as per Forrester’s Research, by 2016 digital marketing spend is going to increase to $76 billion, and by the end of this year, the spend will be close to $41 bilion. This relates to the US but encompasses spend on Social Media, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Display advertising and Search Marketing. Whilst this is US specific, it highlights what is happening in a developed online market and cannot be dismissed. This will trickle down into the immature markets such as ours here in the Middle East.
What these figures show, is that if you are a company, there is overwhelming support that your target market, your potential customers are moving online. Perhaps most significantly is how they are accessing the online arena and this is tantamount to what’s happening in terms of Web 3.0. Last year, 2011, was a complete game changing year when it comes to the online space. The reason for this, is that it was the first time that the number of Smartphones sold exceeded the number of Personal Computers sold. And that number is only going to increase, you can also bring tablets into that equation and easily say that people are accessing the internet more and more through mobile devices. Global internet users are set to double over the next few years, most of them will be mobile.
Someone quite familiar with this, are the guys at Google. Their Project Glass is bringing the future to today. This technology is amalgamating mobile with augmented reality to bring you the most
Lots of people wanting to know why their companies are failing online.natural integration with the internet yet. We are moving away from the User Generated, Social web that connects people in Web 2.0 and into the age of the Semantic web where we are connecting knowledge as Web 3.0. The core understanding to take from this, is that in Web 3.0, the internet is truly omnipresent and rather than generating content, you become your content.
We then moved into the ‘Now’ and went through the fact that without the Online Marketing Jigsaw and a structured approach – most companies really are floating between Web 1.0 and 2.0 – mainly because they want to engage in the most cutting edge strategies, but they lack the education to actually implement them in a way that will see them demonstrate a Return on the Investment, financially and time wise.
Due to the time constraints, I offered the opportunity of a 90 minute webinar for those people that really wanted to delve a little deeper into the 12 pieces of the online marketing jigsaw. We are just waiting to see what the uptake of subscription is for that and then will look to get a date and time in the diary. If anyone would like to register for this webinar, click on the link – Online Marketing Strategy Webinar
Alternatively if you have any questions or just want to get in touch, drop us a line at strategy@maximumnetgain.com
