I'll begin with a question. Is asking, "What is the future of media?" the smartest question we can ask? Yes I know the topic is frequently debated and discussed, but is that what we should be asking ourselves? We all know that media is consumed in a variety of places and formats. Most of us, if told in 1996 that we would consume content, have apps, do email, take pictures and buy things on our mobile phones we would have all said -- no way. Yet, today we do it, and we do it a lot. If at the …

You may have noticed all the news about the launch of Google Wallet the last few days. Or maybe you didn't. Maybe you saw that in addition to MasterCard, now Visa, Amex and Discover have all signed on. Well that makes sense. They're all credit card companies. The real question is, "Why should I care?" The obvious answer is that as consumers use their phone as a form of payment, it will also store all of their credit cards, loyalty cards, daily deals and coupons right on the phone. And if they can be stored on the phone and …

Over the past two decades, the media landscape has been shaken by technological changes that obliterated the barriers to participation. We found that distributed distribution increases the speed and volume of media consumption and interaction.

The smart phone, with internet connection (duh) is today's mom's number one, can't-live-without-it item. Take away my TV, my laptop, my land line, but don't take my mobile. That's what over a thousand moms told us on a survey that my site, Parenting.com, conducted this summer, in collaboration with BlogHer. The numbers showed that nearly 40% of moms can only go a few hours without that smart-phone/internet connection. I'm surprised that number isn't higher, given who most moms of young kids today are. Today's moms are actually your peers - or possibly a couple of decades younger than you are, …

Trying to predict media changes over the next 10 years strikes me as a fool's errand, given how much media has changed in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give it a whirl. I see two paths: One I hate, the other I love. They're not mutually exclusive, and I know there are hundreds of potential routes sitting in between them, but here goes.

Much as we have all pledged our undying commitment to our media-related jobs, we may soon be joining our forgotten travel agent friends with the rise of citizen journalists. These savvy smartphone-carrying boys, girls, moms and dads next door are the future of media. CNN may be the only media conglomerate that officially recognizes this through its iReport segment, but citizen journalism is undoubtedly growing through blogs, contributing writers and most recently, YouTube. Ten years ago, the tragedy of 9/11 showcased the real value of citizen journalism. The unexpected attacks, combined with New York City's eager video-taping tourists allowed …

Advanced advertising has been described as a potential game changer in the advertising marketplace, but it is not without challenges. Last year CIMM released a whitepaper, The Roadmap for STB Data, which concluded that advanced advertising needed to become more standardized and scalable before it's potential could be maximized. Ah, but what a difference a year makes. While advanced advertising is not completely national, there have been significant capability improvements that streamline ease and use for more advertisers. These advancements were highlighted in the recent B&C / MultiChannel News event, "Advanced Advertising - Scaling to Critical Mass" which brought …

Online display advertising will become an increasingly important aspect of online marketing. The maturity and competitiveness of the search market mean that most advertisers will find it increasingly difficult to scale their search campaigns efficiently. By contrast, most ROI-focused advertisers have not been tapped into display ads because of the impression-based business models and poor response rates. The tremendous improvements in audience targeting and appurtenant business models have opened up doors to the display medium that have traditionally been closed to them. As part of that movement, retargeting will become standard marketing practice for online marketing.

The future of media will, at least partly, be about managing the overwhelming number of media options available to consumers. Long term it's likely to be driven by the yet-to-be-developed tools and utilities that will allow the consumer to make sense of the profusion of media options and allow him to time shift, curate, multi-task, edit, find, choose, rate, share and store the media bits he wants to have available.

The future of media is not inevitable, it is what we make it. If we employ cynical, opportunistic technology designed to trick people into spending, we deserve our own demise. The future of media ought to use technology to make us more human, more relatable, and more honest.