Portals

“Share off mind, share off experience are key. A trusted relationship is necessary, even in business portals”

Internet, Intranet, Extranet, Website, Portal? What is what actually? Different names for the same thing?

The difference between these terms is the focus of the owner. The technology is basically the same.

The Internet is the public environment where anybody can go and find info, contacts, bargains, etc.

An Intranet is a network structure in the same fashion as the internet with focus on company personnel only and has exactly the same functionality as the internet. Access is regulated with login facilities. The contents is always company related

An Extranet is focused on a companies customers. Access to the extranet is granted in exchange for contact information or subscription. The contents is company and service related.

A Website is a company’s presence on the Internet. Websites have evolved from static information provision to customers into dynamic points of sale directly connecting to internal business processes. This differentiated websites and the term Portal was introduced.

A Portal is something that gives access to …, is the only entrance to… and therefore allows only privileged access. It is the only access to all relevant resources. In case of an internal Portal this means that the portal gives access to all business processes, all applications, all employees, but only to those with the right privilege. A portal can be directed outward, to the customer’s side, or inward, to the employee side. I will treat these two types of portals as one.

por·tal (pôr'tl, pōr'-) Pronunciation Key n.
A doorway, entrance, or gate, especially one that is large and imposing.
An entrance or a means of entrance: the local library, a portal of knowledge.
The portal vein.
A website considered as an entry point to other websites, often by being or providing access to a search engine.

It is well known that the doctor’s children are usually ill as the shoemaker’s children wear the most worn shoes. Companies that excel in organizing their external processes and communication have to realize that this excellence has to be met with internal processes that facilitate service workers to intervene in those external processes.

There is a strange thing to companies. They are very interested in creating a relationship resulting in transactions. But when transactions fail, they tend to look a way or at least create thresholds with the aim to slow reclamation processes. In the Netherlands companies offer new customers a 0800 number to be able contact them. This number range is free of charge for the caller – because: future customer - . Once you are a customer, there is only one means of communications left. 0900 numbers costing between €0,10 and € 0.90 per minute. Cost for usage of the mobile phone is not included. In fact companies earn money by messing up.

The basic reason for this behaviour is the cost element of after sales service. To many people involved, outsourced call centre facilities causes high cost and loss of quality and involvement.

We have seen this in recent rapidly growing markets like web-hosting, mobile telephony etc. Fast in sales, slow in service!

Other types of companies will have to deal with these problems as soon as they start extending their processes outside the company’s borders for the simple reason that the company is no longer able to decide when a business process is to start. Customers will start the process. Resulting in unpredictable use of resources. To regulate this companies throw up thresholds minimizing effort but maximizing customer frustration.

The answer to this is a different way of designing business processes. Processes have always been designed by ICT specialists who were aware of the limitations of their machinery and software. Introduction of internet type technologies have opened a new range of possibilities to design and manage business processes.

As the outside world of individuals is slowly but steadily organizing itself in social networks, interest groups, ideology communities etc. Companies have to counter this by servicing the individuals in a manner that creates respect, or run the risk to be nailed to the wall by consumers in the same fashion someone can get world famous in 24 hours. Chat rooms, bulletin boards etc. There is a strong need for a long term strategy regarding redesign of business processes.

Portal Technology is readily available and proven technology, yet companies use it to share knowledge and call it a knowledge management environment. In fact it could be the mirror image of what is happening in the outside world. Faster information in the outside world requires faster and better information in business processes.

Digitals relationships between companies and their customers require adequate management tools. Not only standard CRM and ERP type solutions, but also Customer Self Care type solutions outbound AND inbound. Showing all relevant information at any point in time to anyone authorized.

This requires two basic conditions;
1. A central identification and authorization mechanism is in place.
2. All company resources are connected.

This implies that the portal is the employee’s window to the company and its customer’s. Business processes will be redesigned on this level creating a 3 tier process structure. People are allowed to work together in different settings. From simple production tasks to complex project teamrooms where all project info and resources are combined.

Companies will in the end have to manage their new digital environment consisting of three main areas of interest.

1. External portal with processes and interactivity
2. Internal portal with processes and information
3. Networked data structures

Only the third area is a typical technology issue. The first two are a combination of communication, commerce, organization and ICT. It is evident that new ways of managing these areas create a new challenge to companies. There will be a strong change in governance. Both decision making and project management need a different approach. Multi discipline projects ask for different ways to manage knowledge and skills. The old concept of project or process owner seizes to exist

All major companies in the world have a portal installed, still far from complete or effective but still.

Forrester stated three relevant issues to portals

1. “The portal becomes as essential as e-mail and telephony.”
2. “The allure of new features, combined with lessons learned (…) is an irresistible opportunity to give portals a second or third shot.”
3. “Ambitious firms extend portals to partners and customers.”

The first statement has all ready been proven true. Sales of portal technology is at the moment the fastest growing sector in software sales.

The second will prove itself shortly. When introducing new concepts like for instance VoIP (.. or rather Internet Telephony), no intensive implementation projects are needed. Simply add the function to the portal and it is available to all users.

Portals come in all sizes and shapes and they are not easy to compare. An easy way to categorize them is the ambition level in the portal.

Ambition levels

In recent studies of business cases we found three levels of ambition;
1. Function based, providing (personalized) information.
2. Activity based, providing (personalized) knowledge and communication facilities.
3. Task based, providing (personalized) guidance and prioritization.
Ultimately aligning activities with business objectives and goals.

A portal consists of a number of generic business functions – aside from identity management and authorization – that enable users to work with the resources or processes.

o Communication tools like mail, instant messaging, video conference, meeting maker, etc.
o Collaboration tools like, document sharing, discussion platform, knowledge finder etc.
o Content management systems using push and pull mechanisms supplying news and information.

o Clippings, RSS, Press Releases etc.
o Workflow management processing tasks, documents, etc.
o Personal space
o Business Intelligence
o Web-services
o Knowledge Management Facilities

Employees or customers will create their own way off working with these new environments. Many companies allow departments and individuals to create their own space and presence within the portal. New ways of exchanging information new way of planning a career, new ways of managing activities will arise from these portals.

There are all ready excellent examples in the area of open-source” collaboration. On the Geneva Car Show showed a new model of an environmental friendly vehicle was presented, entirely designed in an open portal environment by technicians and scientists all over the world.

In a large infrastructural project I have worked in myself teamrooms with project planning facilities, instant messaging and document sharing, resulting in perfect collaboration.

Portals have a lot of benefits coming with them. We already identified the ease of introduction of new technologies. Portals glue everything together thus creating a standardization of infrastructure, communications etc. The technology also enables benefits of a non financial character;
1. Save time, More time for value added activities like strategy development and innovation
2. Create flexibility. Easily implement new technologies. Portal platform can be used by internal AND external stakeholders at the same time.

3. Share Knowledge and

4. Increase productivity by implementing simple workflows, and give users their own digital space to have them come back regularly and work with the portal through natural motivation.
5. Improve decision making by creating best practices, business cases and benchmarks etc.

The financial benefits will differ per situation. Standard financial benefits how ever lie with standardization activities. The infrastructure (both hard and software) and supporting processes can be standardized easily. Simple cost saving can come from P&O processes like declarations, trips administration, easier communication facilities. Faster access to information, and so on.

The burden off legacy systems

All companies, large and small have a legacy of old systems. These systems are often of a design incapable of dealing with real-time processes the customer wants in interactive environments.

Getting your legacy systems web based is normally far to costly

Circumvention of legacy systems with a portal type layer is the only strategy that incorporates two ingredient for future success.

1. Modern interfaces for customers and customer service workers.
2. No des investment and loss of knowledge by forced replacement of legacy systems.

It is necessary to draw up a business case showing at least actual cost and predicted cost cuttings. Use this to evaluate final results and you will notice that portals make companies better.

Cases

Recently I initiated a program to realise an internal portal for an international media company. We researched best practices and came up with many interesting cases. They all showed the same pattern. Only from reorganising support processes an internal portal can be financed. ROI period lies regularly under 1 year. The real benefits in the area of knowledge management and flexible re-styling of business processes are difficult to calculate because many benefits are of a quality nature, so these cases may com in handy.


Summary

Means : Portal technology is the fastest growing ICT market world wide and this is only the beginning. Without portal technology companies are just not agile enough to keep u the pace of rapid changes in technology

Message : The single point of entry must be clear about what it stands for. It will be – in fact – your shop window, behind which your entire product catalogue will be available.

Media : Portals need to be tuned to portable devices and tuned to the context. Geographical context is key. “Sat-nav” suppliers have a great future.

Media charateristics

“Since media differ marketing specialists will have to learn to use them in their specific strength”

When the container term media is used people usually refer to broadcast media like radio, newspaper and TV as in the description below. In this article I treat anything that carries ‘information’ from a ‘sender’ to a ‘recipient’ as a medium. This can even be a piece of paper in the form of a postcard or a reply-form in a magazine. Marshal McLuhan describes a lot of other media distributing ‘signals’ like a light bulb or a copper wire. In his book “Understanding Media” (1962) he distinguished warm and cold media based on consumer participation.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
me·di·a1 /ˈmi did ə/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[mee-dee-uh] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a pl. of medium.

2. (usually used with a plural verb ) the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely: The media are covering the speech tonight.

McLuhan stated that a book is a warm medium because the reader must actively visualise the descriptions given, where as film and TV are cold, because they leave nothing to the imagination. In his age interactive media didn’t exist yet and interactivity is very important in user participation, because this activates the users senses keeping associations top-of-mind.

Although McLuhan’s ideas were revolutionary at the time, I think other ways to categorize media are necessary in order to understand their functionality and closeness to the user.

Convergence

There have been discussions lately on the convergence of media in three different fields;
1. Networks,
2. Services,
3. Applications and Devices.

Of course we see this convergence. TV over internet ad mobile devices, PDA that have the power of a small PC, etc. These developments are powered by the technological evolution of distribution networks and therefore a technological discussion, which I try to avoid here. The evolution of media in the future will be based on human metrics not technological ones.

I see various ways to categorise media. Let me give you an overview of possibilities

The human senses and abilities

Text; Written media leave a lot to the imagination. The reader is mentally involved in “painting” the descriptions given. Other simultaneous activities however are hardly possible, because reading uses almost all of the human abilities.

Audio; Sound media, like talk-radio or music broadcast, deliver intensive amounts of information in a manner that leaves people free of deploying other simultaneous activities. Although not very warm in McLuhan’s categorisation, I think listeners involvement is high, because of the freedom of choice they have they concentrate strongly on the message.

Video; The consumer medium “pur sang”. No imagination is necessary. McLuhan describes this as a cold medium. But attention span of film and TV are long and intense.

Type of distribution – connections

There exists a fine analogy between distribution of information and physical transportation. Let’s keep it simple and ask the question why cars are a more popular choice of transportation than trains. You could see the car as a 1-on-1 solution, delivering exactly the transport needed, whereas the train is a broadband (1-to-many) type off solution designed to service large numbers at the same time. This is both its strength (cheap and easy to maintain) and its weakness (it never services the total need.

You can categorize types of media in the way they distribute information and how it is delivered. Broadcast, narrow cast, point cast pod-cast, and even cell-cast. All very modern categories. Actually the last two (pod-cast and cell-cast) have developed with new technological possibilities and are just variations on a theme.. I would like to stick to the categories below.

1-on-1: Or personalised marketing was a hot topic in the nineties off last century. Nowadays it is referred to as peer to peer communications or point cast. Tailor made information for the individual consumer. It is an entire range of techniques more than a media solution. Play-on-demand, My-space etc are 1-to-1 solutions in a many-to-many environment.

1-to-many: Normally referred to as broadcast. Aimed at anyone that can receive information at a specific time with a specific medium.

A variety on broadcast type of communication is cell cast. This means one message for all present in a certain geographical area, limited by the strength of the distribution signal..

Many-to-many; Also referred to as net cast. This is a networking technology used in social networking. It is not truly all to all but the individual user can take it’s pick from all information offered an can comment on it or offer information back to the community

And then there is POD-cast. Play on demand as you please for audio and for video.

Controllability

The fact that a consumer / user can control what is happening in the media he or she uses has a direct influence on the user involvement and attention. Controllable media are therefore closer to the skin, closer to you.

Non-interactive: There are a lot of non interactive media. Radio, TV, news paper, Bill Board, etc. Non interactive means that a spontaneous reaction to the sender of the information is not possible. Although some TV and radio formats allow listeners and viewers to react. I categorise them as non-interactive because one way response mechanisms are used here

Semi-interactive; Newer media initiatives on the Internet can be regarded as semi interactive. Discussions are possible with a delay like e-mail forums, Blogs etc. Direct contact is not possible.

Fully-interactive: In social networks the newest type of communication is fully interactive, based on Instant Messaging. Examples of instant messaging are SMS, MMS, Chat, and Video Conference. Not many companies offer this kind of communication possibilities to their customers. Direct contact is a threat to the internal business processes.

Accessibility

From the human perspective media have different modes of access. This access is not always a freedom of choice, something all customers value very much.

To illustrate the accessibility paradox I give you the following. Internet Telephony is free. Skype and VoIP are developments that have been in the centre of attention over the last few years. VoIP is very successful within enterprises whereas Skype in the consumer world has lost its momentum. Why should we ask?.

The explanation is fairly simple. Accessibility. When working on your computer in the enterprises intranet VoIP is always accessible. In the private domain of the consumer the transfer to the PC is just one step too much, when an adequate alternative is readily available. In 2007 internet telephony receded. This process will not restart unless “always-on” devices start servicing this “Internet Telephony”.

Although media development can be placed in a historic perspective, which I will do in a later stage it has developed in three basic steps

Random: From clay tablets and other “one off” productions. Up to the modern billboard. You’ll never know when you’re going to see it.

Switch on; Like TV, radio, newspaper and even books. Etc.

Always on: Only personal mobile devices apply to this standard, which in terms off communication possibilities is the ultimate state.

Operating distance

The human measure applies to media too. Only if media find themselves between 3 feet and zero space from its user full control can be used. Farther away and remote controls are used, limiting the freedom of control. The closer to the skin, the more trusted media are. And the more private they become. I’m totally satisfied that friend come to my home and watch my TV. If they want to use my PC it feels like an intrusion. Let alone my cell phone. No one come within reach. It is mine.

The distance comes with two other aspects. First the context in which you use a medium and which people accompany you. Secondly the span of attention a medium generates. Communication professionals will always search for the optimal mix. Attention and context. This creates the media value.

Span of attention

Some media create other or longer spans of attention due to the nature of the medium. Since the message is more important in creating true attention I will leave this aspect out of the categorisation.
Media have to be categorised along two axes;
Span and or depth of attention
User involvement

The future of screens

Research labs of all consumer electronics producers have developed new materials that can act as a screen. These new materials are known as OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) and they come in the form of textile like fabrics. You cab wear your screen, or hang it on the wall- The size is limited to the size of you room. Screens will appear in sleeves and provide interactive possibilities. Can a medium get closer to your skin, can it get more “trusted”. The medium becomes personal space.

It will be a fine age for privacy lawyers and digital burglars!

Summary

Means : All types of media distribution will convert into one wireless technology. Cabling, Fixed Switch boards, and other networking components will come to an end. This development will only be slowed down by Telco’s that need to stretch the earn-back period of their investments in fixed network components

Message : The integrated approach in the 4-steps will be increasingly tuned to the environment customers find themselves in…..made by the environment

Media : PDA+. The revolution of personal devices has begun and the days of the personal computer as we know it are numbered. Ajax technology enables devices to be whatever you want with Ajax server based applications. Personal devices will become more than photographing telephones. They will be personal assistants, projectors, book, game console and ……everything. Where will Microsoft go?

Relationship building

“A trusted relationship is one that grows and adds value for both parties without obvious economical drivers,”

The first time a child wants something out of reach it has an automatic strategy, it can’t talk, but it can draw attention. It cries and will keep on doing so until its needs are satisfied. At a certain point in time this kind of relating becomes counter productive for two reasons. Just asking for something is more accurate and keep on crying generates anger and frustration. More importantly, it costs a lot of energy.

When the child becomes more grown up it is expected to start helping it’s parents with odd jobs, shopping, cleaning etc. and not only exchange love, warmth and food, but also services. Working together adds value to a relationship.

In real life and in business, building relationships is alike

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
re·la·tion·ship /rɪˈleɪ ʃənˌʃɪp/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ri-ley-shuh n-ship] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a connection, association, or involvement.
2. connection between persons by blood or marriage.
3. an emotional or other connection between people: the relationship between teachers and students.
4. a sexual involvement; affair.
[Origin: 1735–45; relation + -ship ]
—Synonyms 1. dependence, alliance, kinship. 2. affinity, consanguinity. Relationship, kinship refer to connection with others by blood or by marriage. Relationship can be applied to connection either by birth or by marriage: relationship to a ruling family. Kinship generally denotes common descent and implies a more intimate connection than relationship: the ties and obligations of kinship.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Early marketeers and sales people used the billboard type strategy of drawing attention, either they shouted their message out loud or painted it on a wall. The latter is more sophisticated because it is not limited their physical presence.

With modern digital media at our disposal we can make use of different types of communication in order to build relationships. We still use billboards, but also newspapers, magazines, mobile phones, you name it. I think it is important to note that all these different media are treated differently by its users, readers or viewers. Each medium plays a different role in their daily behaviour. For a detailed overview of media and their possible use I refer to “Media Characteristics”.

The 4-step program

There is only one approach towards building trusted relationships. This approach enfolds in 4 steps.

1. Make yourself known, draw attention, shout and in doing so trigger an interested response. Get the attention without scaring people away.
2. Cover the interested response by allowing interaction as much as possible. This is the information exchange phase building the relationship creating maximum trust
3. Create a transaction
4. Maintain the relationship

The results in customer response should be measured at all times to be able to tune the messages sent or products delivered, achieving maximum customer response and involvement.

One could choose for a “black-box” kind of approach. This measures input / output of the whole system. This is like comparing marketing budget against growth of market share.

In the 4-step program a more detailed “step-by-step” measuring system is required throughout the relationship building process. This allows for predictable results against predictable costs.

The 4-step approach should be part of a long term plan, including marketing issues, predicted traffic (eye-balls) per step, media conversion traps (when transferring from one medium to another), Measurement schemes and direct links to internal business processes

This of course is a very generic approach, but is applies to all kinds of relationships. Even inter human relations as love (flirt, opening line, talk and …. maybe a kiss?) often follow this pattern.

All types of marketing communication have the same objective; to create a transaction. In order to achieve that transaction all 4 steps have to be defined. For each step an other medium, in combination with an other “information package”, is used. It may be superfluous to state that an integrated media approach is preferable because discontinuous information between the various steps will probably not establish the desired relationship. Customers will be confused. I strongly advise to create an interaction chart helping you organise this. It is dealing with three aspects
1. The steps
2. Company initiated information flow
3. Customer response

The final objective – the trusted relationship – can be achieved through customer participation. Until now this was hardly ever the case. The producer produced and the customer consumed. The value chain ended when the consumer had bought and consumed the product or service. With new interactive media at hand we are able to go beyond that and build true participation.

You can treat these trusted relationships as an extension of the company’s assets. These relationships are actually the value of the company. To maintain these relationships a different communication approach is required. The orientation on markets, or even target groups needs to be more sophisticated, more tuned to the individual relationship.

The customer or the transaction is not the end of our efforts. It is in fact the beginning of a relationship every company should desire. Companies need to invest in these digital relationships in order to have customers participate in their activities. Mobilise the customers force, it is your best asset. It has been well known for ages that the cost of maintaining a relationship is far less than the establishment of a new one.

In reality most companies stop servicing after a transaction has been realized, because they feel after sales service is too expensive. We all have experienced how tourists are treated (they probably will come here only once….). But customers are here to stay. Recent studies in the Netherlands showed that only 25% of customers were satisfied with after sales service by call centres. For the majority it was reason enough to turn to the competition. The total sum of telephone sales is still growing faster then internet sales. How can that be? Do customers have the need to grant the privilege of a transaction to someone of flesh and blood instead of a machine or a software application?

The customers changing role

To give you an idea of the differences in approach I related three types of orientation; market, customer and participation and compared relationship building, type of communication and the instruments used and their effects.

The matrix below shows the characteristics of these types of approach. I gave them each a value for; final objective, commercial attitude, weighing of competition, type of communication used,
type of organisation needed and last but not least customer involvement.

Meanwhile it is common sense that customers are willing to share their experience. There are enough examples showing customer participation enabling buzz marketing, based on trusted mouth-to-mouth communication.

Once one hits the right button relationship building accelerates exponentially in the digital environment. Fine examples are found on Youtube – getting world famous over night.

An other strong example is the Dutch Socialist Party’s (SP) election campaign of late 2006. Within three weeks a cleverly designed low-cost e-mail / video concept reached almost 2 million voters. In TV GRPS that is over 12,5%. Trusted communication, the talk of the town. In old media value that’s worth a lot of money. The number of seats in the Dutch parliament rose from 9 to 25. Go relate !!

Commercial Strategies

Hook-line-sinker

The fisherman’s metaphor. It connects the fish and the fisherman. It enables a relationship in which a certain amount of control is used over the other. Movements are registered behaviour is influenced and a transaction is made. To make the metaphor complete one should add “the bait” to start the whole thing off and last but not least “the rod” in order to influence behaviour.

Because of the unequal position on the different sides of the hook it is not a preferred relationship model, but it holds all ingredients that digital marketing and sales strategies should have.
. Bait to attract attention
. The hook stands for loyalty
. The line stands for relationship
. The sinker stands for measuring consumer behaviour and..
. The rod stands for the amount of control, but remember this works as a two-edged sword.

All strategies should consist of at least these five elements. The rest is distribution of the message.

DM like e-mailings, viral explosions, SMS cell cast to attract immediate attention and media transfer. Remember that customers do not like unwanted info. Use privileged addresses only.

It could be an email blast with built-in “mail-a-friend” options. This is only effective during a limited period in time. It explodes and then collapses. As with all explosions it should have critical mass. Start with at least twenty thousand addresses. Remember to build a database and be accurate to add and remove addresses when requested.

Semantic (- in context -) advertising.
Research shows that pop-up type advertisements irritate to a high degree, closely followed by colourful and blinking banners. Still most of the marketers or add distributors move billions of banners a month. The new and proven better way of advertising is text only and tuned to the context the user is interested in. When an individual visits a garden site on the internet he or she is probably not interested in mortgages. Maybe advertisements for lawn mowers generate higher hit rates.

Search Marketing is a type of marketing that is triggered by the one top activity in the net, searching. People search in the invisible word of the internet with so called search terms. From the advertiser’s perspective it is of value to appear in the top 10 search results, otherwise hit rates fall progressively. There are different types of search marketing;

Paid listing; Marketeers pay for specific search terms and sentences to appear top of list. The highest bidder comes first and the search engine cashes per click.
Contextual search; marketeers pay for certain terms in theme websites. The search terms are then highlighted in the text and the website owner is paid per click
Paid inclusion: This technique is used by companies that have too many products to sell. It becomes too expensive to buy and maintain the number of search terms. They communicate product listings with the search engines instead. In terms of hierarchy paid listings come first in the list.
Site optimalisation: This technique is executed by companies themselves. Inclusion of frequently used search terms in the website content and creation of links to the website are most common.

Ambassador strategies are very powerful. The trusted relationship between the ambassador and customer is must a more trusted one than between supplier and customer. In the digital environment ambassadors could play an important role but be careful. If customers get the idea that ambassadors earn money in their role as ambassador the game is over. If I told you the pizza in the restaurant around the corner are of excellent quality, there’s no reason why you should doubt me, as long as my opinion comes to you as an independent third party.

There are many other “event-type” marketing possibilities with very military names. We use them in traditional sales too. Circumvention, Guerrilla, Underground etc.

In the digital environment new communication strategies become possible since customers gather indifferent fashions. They ICQ, MSN, SMS, Twitter, Google, Tube and Profile. These new environments hold strong marketing promises since the fact that customers give away a lot about their behaviour and interests. One should realize that the 4-step approach is always applied; Attention, Information, Trust & Transaction and Relationship. It could be wise to use a mix of different types of media to do the trick.

Social buzzing (spread the word) on the web is becoming an interesting phenomenon as in mobbing (events in the real world – be on…. Square tomorrow at 18.00 pm and wear an umbrella). It looks like an artistic type of performance but just these types of expressions explore the new possibilities of people and machines working together in a new type of society. Commercial initiatives will follow suit.
Summary

Means : The network to support all of these techniques is almost ready. The new IPv6 machine identification system will revolutionise the networks possibilities and its ease of connectivity

Message : Messages will be tuned strongly on the final goals, since context and trusted referral behave as image and brand marketing type of approaches

Media : The penetration of more and more sophisticated personal and mobile devices will boost personal marketing.