Two Washington Post articles this weekend serve as a reminder of how fast the online communications world is changing. On Sunday, Yuki Noguchi looked at the fickle nature of social networking sites’ audiences, wondering if MySpace will meet the same fate as Xanga and Friendster before it. One caveat: her evidence is largely anecdotal, and the average amount of time users spend on MySpace has stayed around two hours per month for the past year. Still, Facebook seems to be waiting in the wings as the Next Big Thing.
The previous day, Sara Kehaulani Goo examined Google’s aggressive expansion beyond text search ads into video ads and more comprehensive online campaigns. The company already has a 500-person team in Manhattan designed to work with large national advertisers.
As online persuaders, the tools open to us are constantly evolving. I sometimes wonder how we can keep up with them all.
– cpd