5 Internet Marketing Predictions for 2011

Here are my Internet marketing predictions for 2011.

1. The European Union anti-trust investigation of Google will give the company a black eye this year. I’m no expert, but I remember that public opinion of Microsoft suffered quite a bit shortly after the EU launched an anti-trust investigation of them in the 90′s. Google is ripe for a public relations crisis because:

• They’re big and incredibly profitable, and people seem to distrust big, profitable corporations
• What Google does isn’t well understood by the general public or regulators, increasing the odds of a PR problem
• Google is adding “content portal” type features every day, which might be viewed as an attempt to control more traffic
• Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, many people believe Google results are being manipulated to favor Google, specific advertisers, etc. As a result, they may feel Google requires some sort of government regulation/intervention

2. Mobile marketing and mobile web use will finally start to live up to the hype. Since I’ve been working in Internet marketing in 2006, the industry has been buzzing about mobile web use and mobile marketing opportunities. However, the annual “200X is the year of the mobile web” prediction has been wrong…until now. I’m seeing evidence of substantial mobile use, and it will be a part of my plan this year.

3. Bing will gain market share. If my first prediction comes to pass, Bing (which powers Yahoo) will obviously gain search engine market share. Even if it doesn’t, I’m still confident Bing and Yahoo will start to grab more business. They have a good search engine in terms of results, a good ad campaign that attracts new potential users, and more advertiser interest now that Bing and Yahoo are under the same umbrella.

4. Blekko is going to blow up, but that might not be a good thing. One way or another, the open source search engine project Blekko is going to explode this year. The question is, will the explosion create an even better search engine experience and a legion of dedicated users, or will it result in a mountain of spam? I hope it’s not the latter, but I have suspicions.

5. Behaviorally targeted (BT) advertising will be unfairly regulated. Ads targeted by behavior are taboo in many circles, mostly because people don’t understand how they function and, as a result, have some illogical fears about the technology. I’m expecting the FTC to decide that BT advertising should only be allowed when consumers give explicit approval to participate…and that will be a virtual death sentence for BT (at least in the short term).

Here’s a short explanation of BT just in case you’re not 100% familiar:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmh7gScF08[/youtube]

BT offers a tremendous cost advantage to advertisers and a better ad experience for consumers, both of which will eventually result in less aggressive advertising methods (fewer pop-ups, fewer interstitials) and cost savings for consumers. However, I expect politicians and privacy gurus will take control of the BT conversation this year and do everyone a dis-service.

Here’s to hoping I’m wrong about #1 and #5!!