Our day-to-day lives; reality, as we know it, is fast becoming an integral part of the online world that surrounds us.

MMOG (massively multiplayer online games) as The Sims years ago and today Second Life are alive with always-on broadband connected internauts from around the world. Meeting people is no more restricted to places you know and time zones you live in.

Your favorite MP3 and family images can be directly streamed into Second Life; already infusing a touch of humanity to this gigantic digital mesh.

Business, too, is soaring as are events of all kind for the better and the worst; much as in the real life.

Assist to the Community Event:
What Is the Future for Real-Life Companies Marketing to Second Life Avatars? Or read the Harvard Business Review Avatar-based Marketing

Search, Discover and Meet me around the corner.
SL avatar: Gilbert Frederick

The interactive relationship of ordinary people is accelerating on the web. Yet, no mesure of it is truely reflecting its growing influence over the online landscape.

At worst, wild evaluations predict dramatic shifts in the way business will be conducted from now on. At best, enthusiasts and homegrown publishers of all walks of life are flocking to the gates of CGC or whatever it will be called in the future. I rather use “Community Generated Content” than “Consumer…”.

Precise assessments of such behavior are urgently needed by marketers in order to get a firm grasp on the opportunities and pitfalls that lie ahead. There is no way back, no escape. Delaying the inevitable will only make things worse for the last ones to join the fray.

Look no farther then “Influence 2.0” with its first chapter being appropriately named: “The Dawn of the Age of Influence” by Cymfony’s Jim Nail and add to the wiki knowledge.

Consumers now control the dialogue. Are you listening?

The Long and Winding Road, a Yahoo + OMD recent study, reveals a lot about today’s user behavior during its daily online and offline consumerism.

By way of multi-channel surfing, in-market consumers are gathering information all the way well before any intend to really buy what they are looking for.

Search plays a large role into that data amalgam as it is used to help gather the many bites and pieces needed for a prospective consumer to make up his mind about one’s product or service.

No more is the road to purchase a strait path or a gentle curve (funnel). Today, the shopping experience now ressembles a series of detours (tumbler) that truely symbolizes the way the brain thinks; doubtful and assertive. Simply said: human.

In today’s hectic pace of things and ideas specially in technology; what seems to be fresh yesterday is becoming “traditionnal” in a blink of an eye. All things fade to grey at some point of time.
Search marketing is no exception. It is now totally mainstream. Yet, this getting of age is not a sign of weakness; on the contrary, it is a measure of its pervasiveness on the internet.

This enjoyable situation is relatively new as 2-3 years ago, much hard sell was in order for one agency client or even the corporate world to grasp the potential at hand that represents Search today.

Search is now everywhere and everything all rolled up into one giant Grand Central Station where everyboby comes and goes. As internet usage is soaring, niche content is exploding thus rendering the imperative need of Search unavoidable.

The strength of its success lies in the fact that any online content is retrievable one way or the other. You got to search in order to find.

The future is happening now. It is what you make of it today. Online.

One good read: The Future of Advertising Is Now /strategy + business