Saturday, March 20, 2010

And on to Global Domination

With media awards all completed and submitted it was time to head off to Ad Tech in Sydney for a bit of much needed inspiration.

Maybe it was just me, but if I didn't know better I'd think Ad Tech was a big old piece of branded content brought to you by Facebook. I can't tell you how many sessions Facebook was mentioned in, but I'm pretty sure it was all of them (except maybe the Channel Planning session - and those of you that were there know what I mean).

In typical conference style, unreferenced facts and figures were being thrown around like impressions on a network cpc buy:
  • Facebook is now the #1 site in the US - bumping Google from the top position it has held since it took over from MySpace...
  • In the UK, advertisers are now spending more on Facebook than they are on Google
  • Australia is the social media capital of the world - 70% of the population are social networkers
  • This year Facebook will buy Google...

Now that last one was a joke, Or was it. Stranger things have happened as anyone who has been in and around this industry for a few years knows. Who would have thought anyone could be bigger than Google? But for me it raises a few questions:

  • How are all those UK advertisers managing to spend so much on Facebook?
  • Does this mean Facebook is working hard to find more ways to let advertisers in? And if they do, will they suffer such a backlash from their community that it will cause them to move onto the next big thing (like MySpace users did)?
  • What will that next big thing be?

Answers on the back of a postcard please.