Brand Central Station

Don’t call me a bandwagon jumper. I’m not. But I do like technology and the possibilities it brings to the table.

I looked on with awe from the sidelines as so many of my friends got into (and burned by) the Internet boom of the 1990′s. That bubble rose quickly, lifting everyone to new heights – and probably ruining any sense of perspective for those young people graduating from college when it came to starting salaries – and then burst.

For some reason, we weren’t beneficiaries of all that ludicrous spending. Not that we didn’t want to be, I just couldn’t figure out how what any of these clients wanted fit with what we did. It turns out, in this case, that I was right. Hey, I didn’t need the Internet bubble to burst to create my economic crash, I had my own start-up airline investment go down in flames (figuratively, of course).

We had our own website. It was cool and kooky and received awards and praise. But it wasn’t much more than a big, online brochure.

When I started Brand Central Station in 2001, I had visions of doing more online. As it’s turned out, online has meant, for the most part, via e-mail. And I have some interesting stories to tell as a result – but it hasn’t been until recently that I started to figure it out.

See, if you hit me over the head enough times with a stick, I’ll eventually figure out what’s going on.

I may be in the right place to take advantage of this most recent Internet boom that’s just starting to catch fire. There’s one big difference between this one and the last, however.

This boom is built on business, not hype.

In the B-to-B Magazine story referenced in this article, companies are finally starting to re-tool their websites to be more responsive to customer needs and facilitate transactions. Hey, people are figuring out how to make money on the web. We knew it would happen, we just weren’t sure when.

All we knew is that it wouldn’t involve a sock puppet.

Look where the money is getting spent – not on the sexy, flash animations or massive online productions but on basic blocking and tackling issues: improved order capture, web analytics and search engine optimization. This is a good sign for those marketers who operate in the web/online space.

And it should serve as a wake-up call for the rest of us that work in the “more traditional” medias:

Now hear this … as the Internet matures, it’s ability to perform and provide accountability on a granular level is going to challenge all other forms of media. In online marketing, you know how hard every penny works. Newspapers, television, radio and outdoor better start figuring out how to be even more accountable to advertisers than ever before.

Talk about exciting. There is plenty of growth opportunities in the online world. But that growth will be tame compared to the inevitable upheaval that will be coming from the “real world” of mass media who, no doubt, will be caught flat footed by the new challenges presented by their “virtual” cousins.

I can hardly wait.

Later.

Companies plan Web site upgrades