...these things, which I will dive into more later.

1. Is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? With all the people jumping off to "do their own things" (Tara, Scoble, Om) it sure feels like one of those.

2. Some other former Expedia folks are a part of a team which has launched a group travel site called TripHub. I am going to check it out and report back.

3. A good friend and the former President of Expedia Corporate Travel, Matt Hulett, is now doing a shopping start-up called Mpire. Another one to check out and report on.

4. There are a lot of Canadian online travel sites starting to advertise. I was driving along and heard 3 radio jingles in a row. Great that they are promoting themselves. But too bad they still suck.

Tags: tara, om, scoble, triphub, mpire

For the past 50 or more years, advertising has been based on one basic concept: yelling at people via the television, works. You could get enough of them in one place, nice and passive, and if you delivered the right message enough times you could create awareness. From that (and I simplify) awareness led to trial, trial led to preference, preference led to loyalty. At the heart of this process were the assumptions that (a) you could get enough people in one place to allow for scale and (b) the message was for the marketer to control.

Fast forward to 2006, and that past starts to feel like a trip to Never-never Land. Companies are spending 50% or more of their ad dollars on things like paid search, the money that's left is being cast across extremely fragmented markets, PVRs and Tivo are at long last making commercial-skipping "Me TV" a reality in a way that VCRs never really did.

Clearly, for marketers with a job to do and agencies and networks who would like to keep their jobs, this is a challenge of the first order. So what is the answer?

As we sit here today, I don't think anybody knows. People talk about micro-tactics and multiple small efforts, but how does that work when you need to reach tens-of-millions of people? This is not clear. You hear about "conversations" being important, but how do you control your message in that environment? Feels to me that you just don't. And on top of that, you have an agency and broadcast community that seems to want to wish these changes away and keep doing what they have always done. I've seen *that* movie: travel industry in around 1998, anyone?

At mesh we are tackling these topics with some of the smartest people in the field, and today Mathew, Rob, Mark are joining the discussion, too. I have a bit of a different take on the mesh blog, and Mike has a good post about how we are putting these principles to work promoting the conference.

If you care about this topic, you can't afford not to be at mesh. Register today.

Tags: marketing, media, mesh06tags, web2.0

One of the things we will be exploring at mesh is the impact that social media and the interaction that web 2.0 is enabling is having on politics and society.

In the US, for instance, political blogs have almost become mainstream, with some sporting weekly reach and unique visitors numbers which exceed all but a handful of major newspapers. The Huffington Post, Captain's Quarters...the list goes on and on, and the influence grows.

Not to mention the role that the web has played in political party politics Stateside. Dean for America, (now Democracy for America) Howard Dean's site during his last, ill-fated run for the Democratic nomination, has become viewed as the model for how to use the web efficiently for engagement and fund-raising. At it's peak, people were *paying*  to watch Dean eat a hotdog. Yup, really.

Canada is far away from that. In fact, you could say that there is huge evidence that Canadian political parties, steeped in senior back-room leadership who still might well have people print their emails for heaven's sake, are far out of that loop, despite superficial attempts to look like they aren't. Personally, I think unless that changes, they will have their communal butts handed to them online within two years.

In any event, politics and society is up for discussion at mesh. I have a post up on the mesh blog, and Rob Hyndman who is running that stream has some thoughts here. Mark and Mathew  also chime in. Mike just added a nice post about how his Dad is prime for taking his political thoughts online.

Hope to continue the conversation with you at mesh.

Tags: mesh06tags, politics, web2.0, blogging

I just wrote the following over on the mesh blog. I sort of liked it, so I thought I'd add it here, too:

Lots of talk today about whether money can be made from blogging, with the WSJ publishing a story on it (just the type of story to get the often-inward-looking blogosphere fired into a navel gazing frenzy. But I digress :-)).

I guess it sort of depends on who and how you ask, right? I mean, if you were to ask many of the folks coming to speak at mesh, who happen to blog, whether "blogging makes money" many of them would likely say "Not directly, but indirectly? You better believe it."

I mean, think of the untold millions spent on traditional advertising and PR to create just the type of profile and voice that some people have built for themselves and their businesses via blogging and social media. How can you tally the value of creating your own soapbox? In traditional media, I guess overall marketing efficiency metrics are viewed as the most important gauge of the effectveness of spend, but can one really say, categorically, that traditional PR "makes money"? It's tough. But when put in that context? Wow, blogging "makes money" in spades.

Does it do so directly? Not often. Just like only PR practicitioners, by a tight definition, are the only ones who directly "make money" from PR. But indirectly? Bloggers, their organizations and PR firms Clients, without question.

That's the way to look at it, I think.

Dave Winer comments here, mesh speaker Paul Kedrosky here, and mesh speaker Scott Karp here. Mark thinks aloud here, Mathew has some great points here.

Certainly food for discussion in the marketing and PR streams at mesh.

Technorati tags: blogging, wsj, web2.0, mesh06links

Just blogged about this cool thing we are doing at mesh. Each day, we will have three people take to the stage for five minutes each, to talk about the cool thing they are doing, pitch for VC money - whatever. All the details here.

You don't want to miss this. If you haven't done so, register today.

Technorati tags: mesh06links, web 2.0, conference, toronto

I just blogged about us selecting The Delta Chelsea as Host Hotel for mesh. Renovated rooms, WiFi available, great location near MaRS. All details here. Mathew blogs it here and Mark here. Let's mesh...

Technorati tags: mesh06links

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So they tell me I should blog, so here I am. Blogging, on my own - not-yet-perfect - blog. Let's see what becomes of it.