Does The Internet Have a Future?

'Does the Internet have a future' seems like an odd question to ask considering I'm writing on a blog offered for free through Google Blogger and the people reading my posts are from around the world and in most cases I have not met or will never meet. The history of the internet is short in comparison to other economic world events and industries that have preceded the internet. Such as the first flight or the first land line telephone call. It would be 50 plus years for these industries to go from critical event to profitable business and industry.

The internet has achieved this in far less time. But, is this a Super Nova event like an exploding sun? Is the internet glowing so bright that it will feed off its own energy thus killing itself off? I think not. It is reasonable to ask these questions because we have no other historical benchmark. Our traditional thinking and views don't apply...anymore. The internet is changing the way we live our lives and as high speed internet, wireless and Mobile technologies reaches more and more people everyday, it is changing the way we communicate at all generational levels. Thus, it is changing the way we conduct and do business.

From a marketing perspective, the future of the internet might mean an end to marketing to demographic groups. For example; if globally our children and their Grandparents, regardless of culture, all use the internet for the same reasons and in the same way then how can user habits be different from age group to age group and so on. As a result, a new type of marketing is emerging on the internet; Social Media Marketing or Social Media Optimization. Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Linkedin, Twitter, eZine, etc., all fall within this category. This is where we are all going to and as advertisers we need to be aware of this and therefore ensure our marketing dollars are moving to the internet with the basics (SEO/PPC/Email/Web Analytics) but also learning and marketing in the Social Media arena.

The biggest message I have here is that as a business owner, the changes are happening fast, too fast for a business owner to do internet marketing without expert Internet Marketing advice, guidance and consultation. Search out an expert in your community such as a WSI Internet Marketing Specialist and beat your competition to the punch by not only maintaining your market share but perhaps taking some away from your competition.