Of course, man didn’t suddenly drop gills and leap out of the water and the same, perhaps, goes for advertising. I’m not sure that there is going to be a sudden ‘marketing big bang’ but there could very well be a few more erupting volcanoes along the rift valley and a lot more serious tremours along the tectonic plates of the advertising landscape. As we all know, these sorts of major events tend to spark a new generation of life, energy and creativity and this new branch should produce a few more green shoots.

Doc is absolutely right that a new age of two-way advertising is upon us, but I’m not sure that this is all going to happen immediately at the point of sale or be dictated by the wisdom of the crowds all of a sudden. The truth is that online stores are going to have to spring up around online communities and the members of those communities will be responsible for their appearance and growth. There will always be central repositories of content, but it is the end of the portal as we know it and subsequently the beginning of the end of push advertising. The way sales and marketing messaging is packaged and delivered is going to become much more organic.