• by Mark Naples , January 6, 2006

Columns on predictions are, well, predictable. But with so many of my colleagues teasing up their predictions from last year and throwing them on the altar for sacrifice, I can hardly resist.

Of course, once having concluded a review of my predictions from last year and the year prior, I'll offer one forward-looking statement for 2006. That's the least I can do, hmm?

This time last year, I offered just this one prediction: "I offer divergence for what is the most compelling trend in our industry today. Just as the Web provided disparate means for communications media and actual content to be distributed, today we have a growing number of means for marketers to reach their audiences in a more targeted fashion via sub-segments within rich media, e-mail, and search, and we have the mother of all examples of divergence in the actual content distribution models out there today. Of course, I'm talking about blogs."

Check. These days, we speak less about rich media than about segments within rich media such as pre-roll and within-game units. E-mail has become a darling for marketers who need a performance-based brand-asserting unit that obviates the inventory dearth we've all read about (which has--in part--driven the divergence trend in the first place). SEM continues to surge upward and blogs have made a majority of industry observers think they actually matter. I think identifying divergence as a trend could very well be the No. 1 thing I got right all year last year. So--good for me. That and $5 will get me a one-use umbrella at the top of the 23rd Street subway stop.

Now, let's look back two years--way back to 2004. In August of that year, I was all full of myself, so I made some very early predictions:

1.Rich Media, already the darling of "why our business is growing," will become much more. By Q305, 55+ percent of all ads served on the major portals and top-50 sites will be Rich Media.

a. Who would have thought that these rich media units would be within banners? But there they are. Check.

2. Newspaper Web sites will continue to enjoy a robust increase in revenue and prestige in the overall media mix.

a. As the Rome that is their print patrons burns, newspaper Web sites have come on strong, and should continue to see revenue grow thanks to new buying services coming on line, as has been reported here and elsewhere. Check.

3. People who should know better still will not understand online privacy.

a. Anyone could make this prediction every year and honestly claim victory. Check.

Now that I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy, I should admit that even I know these were fairly amorphous predictions. So, here's a harder one for 2006.

Just as Enron has given us the poster child for corporate malfeasance and Jack Abramhoff has given us the poster child for how Washington really works on the inside--with Judith Miller and Scooter Libby showing us how it works from the outside--there will be at least one more major media-related scandal from Washington this year that will bring down a high-ranking Senator or Cabinet member.

Where does this prediction come from? I only worked in DC public affairs for a dozen years. But I did toil on enough high-level campaigns to know that the kind of quid pro quo media relations and lobbying that now has Libby under indictment, Miller in retirement (albeit wondering how to spend her book advance), and multiple Senators running to distance themselves from being dimed by Abramoff is not exceptional. What was exceptional in these cases was how brazen the participants were, and what was at stake in the Miller/Libby case. I doubt that many people outside those corridors understand how the Washington media and influence game is played. It's far more similar than dissimilar to how the game is played in our own industry and others, actually.

What does this have to do with interactive media? Without the Web, the news cycle wouldn't be as fast-twitch as it's become. So, there wouldn't be the rush to publish stories like the tragically wrong one in West Virginia (which reversed the number of survivors to casualties in the mine explosion). And there wouldn't be the continual efforts to triangulate even news and advocacy that is not triangulate-able. That is, after all, what got Miller in trouble and part of why Abramoff had to pay off so many people he was trying to move toward his clients' ways of thinking. Unfortunately, it's also what all those reporters who were hoping for good news after hours of waiting should have done. But... they were in a hurry to meet their deadlines, weren't they?

In some ways, Web content has raised the bar. But in other ways, it's made doing the right thing harder for people in the corridors of media and advocacy power. If only they knew how to leverage the stupendous power of blogs....