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Surviving Media Disruption At AlwaysOn: Will There Be A Calm After The Storm?

Yesterday, I was at the opening session of the AlwaysOn NYC Media Event. Many of the media industry's top congenscenti were on hand to discuss, debate, spin, and relentlessly pitch the future of all online media. All of the bloggers present (like yours truly) were sectioned off into a tiny space in the middle of the floor called the "Blogger Bullpen" while media business types waltzed by, staring at us like penguins in a zoo.

AlwaysOn's Tony Perkins took the stage and immediately made it clear to the standing-room only crowd that his job in NYC was to scare all the attendees. Tony talked user generated content and the dynamics of the instant messaging generation, pointing out that the old advertising and marketing rules were dead.

Tony and Bill Cleary also ran through a series of amusing blogcam interviews, some at the World Economic Forum at Davos and others on the streets of San Francisco.

During their presentation, Tony and Bill hyped user generated content and hyped user generated content. Did I mention that user generated content is officially hot?

Sure, sure, we've heard all this before. What's new?

Three big themes emerged last night. The first is that Web marketing is evolving, yet again, this time thanks to video. More importantly the advertising industry is finally admitting that there are no industry standards for how to benchmark the success of online video ads. The industry also has no real idea of what "success" will look like for Web video ads.

The second theme was that you can't beat Google at its own game. The way to try to beat Google is through audience, specifically audience behavior. Again, there was no consensus about how behavior can do this, or what behavioral analytics should look like.

The third theme from last night was that everyone wants user generated buzz for their products. However, no one seem to have any idea how to really create it.

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