• by Christopher M. Schroeder , June 7, 2004

Did you ever see those Movie-Tone newsreels from the 1939 or 1940 World's Fairs? Remember the "homes of the future"-an array of technologies and devices for what life would be like in, say, 1955? Robots did all our work, conveyer belts served all our food, and we all flew to work in our airplane-like cars. It was fascinating, and as impractical as it was inaccessible.

Last month I went to Korea, looking today for some hint of "tomorrow." Korea is a land where broadband penetration exceeds 70 percent, whose pipe is 10 to 100 times fatter than ours, where over half of the world's WiFi hot spots thrive, where cell phones have download speeds comparable to ADSL in the States. With all this technological advancement and all the press coverage surrounding it, I was prepared to see almost anything.

What I was completely unprepared to see was almost nothing. Though proud of their extensive achievement, Koreans are about as worked up about their technological advancements as we are about electricity. They simply assume it, and have built it into their daily lives in extraordinary ways.

Take Samsung's "homes of the future"-many of which are now ready to be moved into. Unlike the World's Fair crystal ball, everything is accessible and familiar-no Jetsons here. Imagine a world of flat-screens throughout the house powered by the richest broadband wired and wireless infrastructure. With complete ease you can control all aspects of your lives-what video or television to watch, what music to listen to, what data you want, what buying you wish to transact, what lights and utilities you want to operate, with whom you want to communicate and when.

Imagine that anything and everything you can do in your house is in perfect and immediate sync with your handheld devices, wherever you are. The "home of the future" is all about personal choice- for news, information, entertainment, interaction, transaction-all at your fingertips.

"Technology revolutions are most often over-estimated in the short-run and under-estimated in the long-run," wrote Arthur C. Clarke. The Internet bubble over-estimated the speed and velocity of the change brought by new technology, but not the fundamental impact over time. Revolution is taking place, and we're all not only in the middle of it-but creating its rules. The long-run is upon us now.

Technology's ramifications on media, media consumption, interactivity, and the future of marketing could not be more profound. Some content and advertising businesses are embracing, even leading, this revolution. And yet, even as new thinking in media is more required than ever, many organizations are sitting it out. They are deeply entrenched in their world of comfort, trying to make the square world of one-way broadcast delivery jam into the round reality of interactivity, quick utility and narrowcast personalized choice.

For eight years, I have been on the front-line of this revolution. I ran a data-based, direct-dial business-to-business online service that was nearly overwhelmed by the speed and ubiquity of the Web. Subsequently, through February of this year, I was fortunate to run Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, one of the most widely-visited international, national, and local news and information organizations.

Now, I'm doing something seemingly antithetical to the whole Internet ethos: I am stopping, reflecting, and most importantly, listening. I am traveling around the country and the world to see the best in breed in new media content, interaction, transactions, marketing and technology. I am interviewing dozens of the best thinkers and actors in the new media world-former clients, online publishers, sales execs, vendors, CEOs of innovative internet companies around, smart young entrepreneurs who are writing new rules. I am finding more questions than answers, but the trend is clear: the future of content, advertising and marketing will be progressively personal, targeted and interactive.

In the coming weeks, this column will share my explorations and raise some uncomfortable questions. What are the lessons of Korea and other advanced broadband societies for the future of content and marketing? Cutting through the Google IPO-hype, is the pay-for-performance model doing to the CPM what TiVo and PVRs are doing to the 30 second spot? What is the future of branding in a progressively quick-hit transaction media? Can local and niche sites withstand Google Local?

The only thing I ask for in exchange is that you join the dialogue.