The Age of Infinite Interconnectivity

We've become very blasé about the rate at which our technology advances these days.  It's considered par for course that we see a major technological advancement every year.  This has been very present on my mind as I've been reading a book written in 2007 and published in 2008 about the future of digital marketing.  I have been struck by the amount to which the predictions of the book have already come to fruition, or to which the world has presented an answer that has taken the digital world in different directions.  The last two years have seen the advent of the iPhone and the explosion of mobile apps.  It's also seen the advance of e-reader technology culminating in this year's release of the iPad and its competitors.  4G networks have begun springing up here and there and 3G penetration has covered much of the nation.  Soon it will not be inconceivable for everyone to have internet everywhere without the need of a modem or router in their homes, but instead will connect to their WiMax provider at all times indoor and outdoor.  The proliferation of wireless connection and mobile internet has led to the question: what we can do with this new tech in the future?  Suggestions have been raised that this constant connection to a global information network can lead to a greater interconnectivity between our personal devises and the world around us.  New advances in AR (augmented reality) allow us to manipulate the things we see with computer imagery on the fly.  (For more on AR check out this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality.  For an example of AR in action, take a look here)  The proposal is thus:  Using personal information stored in a person's mobile devise, we can tailor not only the ads the customer is receiving, but the look of the very world around the customer using constant radio connection to the customer's equipment.  For example, instead of a window ad, a screen can be imbedded with an rfid tag, this tag sends a signature to your mobile devise, which then chooses an ad to serve up based upon your personal information and sends the ads unique identifier to the billboard or sign, which will display an advertisement that is directly targeted at the person viewing it.  Thus when entering a store, you will always see an ad that is relevant to your interests within a short period of time.  These ads would be an immense boon to the bookselling industry, allowing us to tool genre specific ads to customers, ensuring that every book published is finding its market as soon as it hits stores, without the cost of having to compete for ad space within the store.

Furthermore, the eventual incorporation of AR into this model will allow multiple customers viewing the same ad space to see different advertisements!  Imagine a world where every niche product can achieve blanket advertising to its niche for a fraction of the price paid today.  Imagine pay per click adverting becoming the standard for normal advertising fees.  I leave you today with the thought of that future, where the consumers, not the marketers, decide what advertisements become a part of their lives.  Next week we'll talk about the issue of privacy!