• by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, September 24, 2009

I helped emcee OMMA Global earlier this week. The title of this year's event was "The New Socialism" and a key focus in the sessions was the growing importance of social media and micro-blogging as a central means of online engagement -- and the role of those services in tapping the $500 billion global spend on offline brand advertising. Since I opened the event, I got the chance to be the first to give my opinion on how the growth of social media and micro-blogging might play out in the market. Here are some of my thoughts.

 It's clear to me that online social media is growing at an extraordinary rate, already representing an extraordinary share of the total time that many consumers spend on media. Further, I am convinced that those services will become significant factors in reshaping the media and advertising landscape. But I don't believe that it will be a simple shift of ad spend where the money follows the relative time spent with media. I don't think it's going to be that simple. Below is some of what I think will happen and what to watch for:

Media is changing, not shifting. Distribution, once scarce, is now plentiful. Media exposures, once scare, are now plentiful. Audience attention, once plentiful, is now scarce. These are the facts on the ground and they are changing the underlying foundation of media, not just shifting it from one channel to another.

Business models and pricing models are changing most dramatically. There are no better examples of the changing business and pricing models than newspaper classifieds and Craigslist. The former has made all participants -- sellers, advertisers, subscribers -- pay dearly, while pocketing outsized profit margins. The latter only requires a tiny fraction of the participants to pay relatively little, and still pockets outsize profit margins. Of course, the $100 million that Craigslist might generate this year is only a fraction of the billions of dollars that it displaced.

Platforms changing, too. It's not just about the PC anymore. It's becoming more and more about the person -- on mobile, on connected TV's, viewing digital out-of-home, on e-readers.

Everyone is now media. The business of media is the business of provisioning consumer contact. You no longer need to be CBS, The New York Times or Sports Illustrated to deliver "consumer contact" to a marketer. Everyone and anyone on Twitter, Facebook or a blog can now do that -- and millions and millions are doing that.

Results for you, me and marketers are all that matters. There is a tough road ahead for exposure-based pricing of media. Online media exposures are growing at an extraordinary rate, maybe even exponentially. The future is not about delivering "cheaper, faster" impressions. It is about delivering results --  helping people find things, helping people buy things, helping people sell things.

It's going to be an interesting next few years. What do you think "The New Socialism" will bring?