1: Project Kangaroo finally gets green light for launch
Kangaroo, the on-demand service from BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 was supposed to be one of 2008's flashpoints. But Ofcom's alarm sounded and the regulator spent the second half of last year testing its assertion that Kangaroo would constitute unfair competition in the wider broadcast market.
Assuming it gets the green light, Kangaroo - or SeeSaw, as insiders reckon it will be christened - will become a content hub for a mass-market IPTV service, drawing on the full range of terrestrial TV content - clearly a powerful thing. Of course, its power is precisely the reason Ofcom has put the mockers on it.
"The ruling will have a huge impact on the UK online ad business," says Suranga Chandratillake, founder of online video site Blinkx. "When you get players of that calibre appearing online, they raise the bar for everyone else."
Kangaroo chief executive Ashley Highfield jumped over to Microsoft late last year, perhaps giving an indication of how little fun it is inside the organisation at the moment. Nothing is guaranteed, but if Kangaroo makes it to launch without compromises, we can expect another shot in the arm for online viewing numbers.
2: Online adspend kicks TV into touch
IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) chief executive Guy Phillipson predicted back in April last year that online would usurp TV as the UK's biggest advertising medium by the end of 2009. eMarketer claims online advertising hit £3.4 billion last year and will reach £4.3bn in 2010. According to the IAB, TV ad spend currently stands at around £4bn, so if online isn't incontrovertibly ahead by next Christmas, everyone will be gobsmacked.
Much has happened in digital marketing over the past year, but little of it does anything to reverse the new power balance between online and traditional advertising.
In its autumn Marketing Trends Survey, the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) identified CRM in general as delivering the best value for money in the eyes of marketers, with lead generation, online advertising and email marketing among the other favourites and advertising at the bottom of the pile.
Online is expected to grow by 1 per cent in 2009, according to the report, while advertising in general will contract by 3 per cent, so even if the growth of online is likely to slow, at least it isn't going backwards.
3: User-generated content makes way for mash-ups
While UGC (user-generated content) will never die, James Clifton, chief operating officer of BBC spin-off Masher.com, believes it will move over to make room for PGC (professionally generated content) in 2009.
"The future is all about professional, high-quality content that users can mix and mash up to create their own videos," he says.
Where there is content, there are advertising opportunities, and with or without the mash-up element, there are abundant signs that content owners of all sizes are seeing with new eyes the potential of the internet as a mainstream distribution channel.
4: Google adds behavioural metrics to its algorithm
Like the Coca-Cola recipe, Google's all-important search algorithm is a fiercely guarded secret. But unlike its fizzy equivalent, it changes all the time, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Experts agree 2009 could be the year for some major new inputs in to Google's algorithm, with the possible incorporation of behavioural metrics such as click-through and bounce rates to assess relevancy values.
Clearly, any changes to Google's processes will have major knock-on effects for brands that rely heavily on SEO (search engine optimisation), just as changes to the internet giant's trademark bidding strategy impacted upon the paid-search sector in 2008.
5: £20 for an email address
Last year, in its National Benchmarking Report, the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) estimated the value of an email address to a company to be £9.11.
While clearly the value will vary hugely, it is hard to imagine that figure going down in 2009. In fact, it will almost certainly rise. Not only does email constitute cheap marketing activity, but data is an asset most companies already possess. What's more, as brands move to safeguard existing business, they will find themselves particularly fond of customers they already have.
"Retention-based marketing is going to be critical in 2009," says Nick Christie, UK country director of Epsilon International.
6: Nokia sets new standards for smartphones
It's been said so very, very many times, but at the beginning of 2009, we have the perfect conditions for mobile marketing to break through into the mainstream. At last we have flat-rate data tariffs, an increasing willingness on the part of media owners to invest in content, and next-generation handsets in increasing numbers.
Nokia claims that its N97 smartphone is 'the world's most advanced mobile computer', with 32GB (gigabytes) of memory and an iPhone-shaming ability to access Flash video. Meanwhile, Google's G1, Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 and Orange's HTC Touch HD will all be there, or thereabouts.
"We've been accessing the internet via the mobile phone for quite a while, but it has always been a disappointing experience," says futurologist Ian Pearson, formerly of BT, now of Futurizon.
"Now we have got an acceptable platform and a range of handsets that will let us surf the web properly. Brands that get in there and establish themselves are going to come across as much cooler than the ones that are watching and waiting."
7: Digital ads get more expensive as TV spots fall
Every year for more than three decades, Robert J. Coen, senior vice-president and director of forecasting at Interpublic's Magna unit, makes a set of predictions about the impact of economic conditions on the unit cost of media in the US.
Indeed, the practice is so enshrined that Coen hasn't yet incorporated digital into his calculations, but his assertion is that 2009 will be a buyer's market in traditional media, with little media inflation.
The difference with online is that, while audiences elsewhere are falling, online is still in the upward part of its curve, and CPMs (cost per thousand) are likely to respond accordingly, particularly with accountable media at a premium.
8: A new dawn for mobile media
If mobile technology has taught us one thing over the past few years, it is that it certainly doesn't give two hoots what stuffy types think about it.
So to the socially polarising likes of music phones and Bluetooth headsets, we will shortly be able to add mobile phones with built-in projectors and internet-enabled visors.
Hand-held projectors are now down to mobile-phone size, so it won't be long before the two collide. Visors, we can probably expect towards the end of 2009, says Futurizon's Pearson.
9: Facebook buys Twitter
There were clearly flaws in Facebook's purchase plan for Twitter, as first announced last November, with the social network's offer of stock based on a valuation given by minority shareholder Microsoft back in 2007.
That said, it's not hard to see the sense in a union of social networking and micro-blogging, and the deal is unlikely to be entirely dead, particularly as analysts puzzle over exactly where Facebook will find its revenue growth.
10: Microsoft snaps up Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo!
There are surely no media giants of significant means which haven't privately mulled over some sort of play for Facebook.
Microsoft has both the buying power, the existing 1.6 per cent stake and the incentive as it plots to dethrone Google as the default entry point to the web. The data and the targeting opportunities are the biggest reasons why such a deal would transform online.
In a similar vein, a Sunday Times story about a renewal of Microsoft's interest in Yahoo!'s search business was dismissed by the industry and denied by the protagonists in early December, but if the specifics were off-target, the substance still looks sound: Yahoo! needs a saviour; Microsoft needs Google-wounding assets.
11: 50Mb broadband arrives
Super-fast 50Mb (megabyte) broadband connections have been mooted as a realistic prospect for a while, but Virgin Media was first to market in December 2008.
More ISPs look set to follow suit this year, providing brands with a whole host of new commercial opportunities. "It is part of the web 3.0 story and the start of a far longer-term trend," says Jean-Paul Edwards, executive director of futures at Manning Gottlieb OMD.
Just as broadband ultimately meant far more to the mass market than speedier page downloads, triggering instead the entire web 2.0 movement, so Edwards believes super-fast speeds will have their own, unforeseen consequences. "It is really the beginning of the next phase for the internet, because it creates a market for new forms of content," he says.
12: Digital marketing goes virtual
With no console launches due for 2009, the new year in gaming is going to be about tweaks, new iterations and applications.
Revolution recently revealed that Home, the virtual world for PlayStation 3 users, will feature a tropical island and an aeroplane racing game from Red Bull, with more brand tie-ups to follow. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime also recently hinted at the benefits of delivering a sense of community to Wii gamers "in a way that is unique to Nintendo".
For brands, in-game and virtual advertising opportunities have been more about PR and low-level branding than hard commercial goals, but these increasingly vivid environments are due a tipping point. On the one hand, brands are unlikely to be throwing money at elaborate stunts, but on the other hand, audiences are likely to have more need for immersive, escapist opportunities in 2009 than ever before.
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