The ghost of Internet future

Posted Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at 11:47pm in Blogging, Media, PR General, Technology  | 

A few months ago I made a post questioning what the PR industry was like before the Internet. My reasons for doing so was quite simple: How did PR people cope prior to it? It is a tool that no doubt helps PR practitioners in every element of the job; be it research, monitoring and communication. And a tool that is now considered a requisite rather than merely a benefit. In fact, I would be pretty confident in thinking that it’s used on a daily basis in every PR office across the globe and taken for granted just the same.

I’m sure some PR practitioners who adopted the technology early on have raised their game through the continuous development of the Internet and adapting to it accordingly. It’s no secret that the technology is advancing ferociously, and if predictions are right, will continue to do so for sometime yet. Even now, it has come on leaps and bounds in its short time of existence. But what about the segments (or should I say majority) of PR that haven’t/aren’t adapting to it? How will they cope in 10, 15 or 20 years time? Which leads me to my next question: How does the PR profession adapt to the continuous rise of the Internet?

Before I start, this isn’t a prediction post. Let’s be honest, I’m not in any position to make any predictions so I’m using it merely a thought analysis. A way to perhaps provoke other people’s thoughts and comments as we try to define what is exactly is in store. A single comment I received from Neville Hobson when I interviewed him for a journalism article at the Sunderland blog conference got me thinking. I asked him what his thoughts were on the future of blogs and technology which he replied saying he believed there will be new ways of communication that we can’t quite see yet. Exciting, but what could they be?

We’re already seeing the blogosphere growing with no let up; online TV shows with huge viewing numbers; online advertising spend increasing as offline drops; music artists creating a huge buzz using Web2.0 tools before their albums are released; news outlets giving their content away for free and prominent PR bloggers being hired. There is very much a social networking space going on but what’s next in store? Richard Edelman believes in the future we should be designing content for all new platforms, including mobile devices. This is a valid point and something that I have been experimenting with - point your phone browser at http://wap.prblogger.com .

Also, consider what the mobile site creator, WINKsite, has been doing with the music record label, Warner. Warner had already used numerous social networking sites to promote pop act, The Veronicas, resulting in their fans also being the co-promoters. But what WINKsite did was condense all these sites into one mobile site, both branded content and user generated content, so fans can view their idols on their phones as well as the Internet. This, I believe, is just a snippet of things to come.

The Internet has also taken away the distance barriers. In some cases, it no longer matters which part of the world you live in to do business. Will we see global ecommerce dramatically increase? Could we start to see agencies servicing clients who live in another country? Or continent? This is already possible now with a VOIP phone and webcam. When businesses/organisations begin to realise that they have to get in on the space to interact and monitor consumer media - if their local PR agencies don’t have the online knowledge and experience, then they’ll have to seek advice from elsewhere; from people who can research proficiently, analyse the online data and deliver expected results from evaluation. And the longer the local agencies choose to leave it, the further away they’ll be from this continually changing landscape.

Whatever happens, there is no disputing that the Internet has made the world a smaller place and will continue to do so, piece-by-piece, bit-by-bit. For now, we are merely observing, monitoring and discussing, and even though the 350+ strong PR bloggers are a considerable number, they are still a niche; a small proportion of the profession. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a post predicting the end of the profession, but merely a thought as to how it will cope as the Internet seeps into our living rooms, kitchens, mobile phones and cars. I think it’s just a matter of time.

Technorati tags:
pr, internet, pr+future,

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