Internet was always about faster access- access to content and access to people.

And just about lately- the powerhouses of the web are moving towards real time internet- in an unprecedented manner.

Just when we thought real time location based chek-ins and personalized content dissemination were becoming mainstream and conversation monitoring systems were coming of age- the biggies of the web almost surreptitiously inserted more social, more ‘instant’ features on their interfaces- taking things a step further.

The phenomenon is noteworthy because the net product is more than the sum of its parts.

Shalabh Thinks: Innovation on the web proliferates faster than Moore’s law on processing power of chipsets. Sometimes little steps for the internet can be one giant leap for mankind.

Two examples that caught my attention recently - are Google and Bing- both riding the social wave. And in an unconventional manner (they have been trying their hands at it since some time)- direct integration of Social in search results.

Full on!

I am already impressed by what Google can do with social features integrated with results on search.

Dig the Realtime function on Google- If you haven’t tried yet- go to Google click on the left hand sidebar- Realtime link- and there you go.

It gives you neat little LIVE updates (mostly twitter)-against pre-defined keywords- and a nice little buzz chart at top right. Right sidebar also mentions key/most shared/important social feeds.

What’s more- they just rolled out their Social Search globally. It leverages publicly available data from sites like Flickr, Twitter (something’s brewing with Twitter and Google it seems?) and other Google sites like blogger, gmail contacts etc- and present it you mapping with your social graph.

Neat. More here in this video:

Along similar lines, Bing from Microsoft – leveraged its alignment with Facebook- and did some stupendous work. And they seem to moving in the right direction in nibbling away some of Google’s search share.

So if you haven’t recently- go to Bing. If you are logged in to Facebook- Bing reads it via cookie identification- and you will see your Facebook pic on top right. This means you can now see your friends recommendations (likes etc) on search results- and they can see yours. If you want to. If not- you could disable the function too.

More from this recent video from Bing:

If you are interested- check out the Twitter maps integration with Bing- real time visualization of tweets on a keyword layered on top of a map. Yoiu could grab a code and embed on your website. All good- except it is a bit buggy.

I had suggested earlier that 2010 would be the year of Systematic Web

I sense that 2011 is the year of the Instant Web

And I predict that 2012 will be the year of the Intent web

By God’s grace, in this field, I haven’t trumpeted empty predictions-give or take a year.

So the next most powerful thing after this wave of instant is easy to guess-It is already happening in many ways- and with unification of data across channels – will become a reality soon- is “The Intent Web”. Services guess your intent based on your past behavior and meta data- coupled with those like you. And serve you content and ads based on guessing what will you do or want next.

The Intent Web.

Or call it what you want- but think about it

Shalabh

@shalabhpandey
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rizzato/3488201179/sizes/s/in/photostream

National sales and marketing congress, an annual event organized by Marketing Institute of Singapore invited me over for taking a one hour session with the audience. The topic? I evangelize (what I refer to as) Engagement led marketing and this seemed to be a good gathering to tackle the subject.

Engagement led marketing, by the way- is exactly that- marketing that is engagement driven. And engagement (to me) is glue that has the potential to tie together different digital (and other) disciplines.

A lot of effort went into this- specially designing and visualization (and I hope it is apparent). I am a bit of a sucker for visually appealing presentations with substance- and I hope I was able to deliver on both.

The presentation was quite well-received and thank God- all that effort was appreciated.

It is said that a one hour presentation requires 30 hours of effort- and I could not agree more. Apart from clearly presenting your own thinking, you need to provide context through research- latest wherever possible, and retain audience interest by making it visually relevant (thank God for photo sharing and creative commons, but finding the right images that tell the story you want to tell is a task- I tell you). Those things take time. (“A whole lot of precious time” as Paul McCartney would say)

On that topic, there are some guidelines I have started following regarding presenting to an audience- and time willing, I’d love to share the key points of delivering a presentation in a conference.

But that later.

I am approached by quite a few people complaining about the pace of technology, fragmentation of media and silo-ised disciplines. This presentation is an attempt to make people appreciate that all marketing disciplines need to work together; engagement led marketing thinking is the common ground/glue- and the key steps in drafting an engagement led integrated marketing strategy.

Think About it

Shalabh

Twitter: @shalabhpandey

Had an interesting session at the MediaMind Digital Experience Day.

The topic I was given was:

The Brand Exchange- Maximizing your reach

Historically exchanges have been widely utilised by agencies and clients as an effective way to drive DR goals… but for building brand? Can this channel ever be utilised to achieve branding goals? Could a brand-focused client take advantage of the available reach and frequency that exchanges offer?

When I got the topic, I looked at it- and the first thought was “What the heck is a brand exchange”? But after a little thought, it was clearer.

We have used digital media as largely a direct response channel. And that will change soon.

Not a visceral prognostication, but the signs are there for those who want to see it. It is coming.

Even till now, banner planning/display advertising planning has always begged for much more than impression/click planning, and intelligent, forward thinking and brave minds have tried to explore beyond what they were being told to.

The event was much bigger than I expected, and I went in a little unrehearsed. I prefer it that ways. It lends a little spontaneity to the show, brings in a raw, conversational element, and if you are comfortable with the story you are telling, things flow.

All said, it went off well. And in an audience consisting of hard core digital media guys, I was glad that it was as well received as it was.

Here’s the presentation: