Where Mobile, Social, Local and Personal all intersect. That’s where the web the heading.

One in five searches on Google is a local search. (That number goes way when the user is searching on a mobile phone).

17% off all time spent on the internet is on social networks. Up from 6% a year ago.

Visits to websites from phones up 34% year over year.

And all of this mobile, local and social content that makes up the web can be filtered, organized, and tailored to fit the needs of the individual making the web personal.

These are a few examples of posts including lists that took me about 5 minuets to find:

“6 SEO Website Redesigns Your Developer May Not Know,” “7 Tools to Optimize the Speed of Your Website,” “Top 100 Internet Marketing Posts of 2009,” “12 Best Free Online Resources for Learning SEO,” “55 Google Website Optimizer Tips & Tricks, “9 Great Collaboration Tools For Teams,” “10 iPhone Apps To Avoid Disaster,” “5 ways to Expand B2B Blogging Beyond the Marketing Staff.”

People write posts about lists because 1. They get lots of clicks; you are curious to see if you know about all 10 ten things. 2. They are easy to put together; a few Google searches and you’ve got a pretty good list going.

I love lists. But only when they are from people that I trust and put those items in some context.

Finding tools and tips and tricks and ideas doesn’t make you smart. Using all those ideas and then reporting back with experience and a suggestion on the best way to go forward is. What the Internet needs now is not more lists. What the Internet needs now is more analysis and commentary  that looks at all of the stuff out there, and says this one is the best. I need more recommendations from smart people who have my best interests at heart and less “comprehensive lists.”

There are reports on how many videos Hulu streams but how come they don’t tell us how many views individual shows are getting? Usually TV shows are quick to point out which ones are getting the highest ratings on TVs even though the way ratings are derived is anything but exact:

Nielsen is making an assumption using a sampling statistic based on 5,000 homes what the approximately 113 million U.S. television-viewing homes are watching.

Yet online, exact amounts of viewership is much more possible. Hulu knows exactly (almost exactly depending on the constraints of their web analytic providers) how many people are watching which shows, how many people drop out and watch shows only half way and they also know the mix of shows people are watching. For example, they would know that a high percentage of people who watch the Simpsons also watch Family Guy, etc.. Sure, Hulu has their “most popular videos” category but they don’t show how many views to substantiate their claim of what is most popular.

You would think they would advertise things like, “Come see the most viewed show on Hulu!” but they don’t, why not? They are hiding something. I bet there is some conflicting data between what the Nielson ratings show and what online shows and they don’t want their advertisers to know about it. And their “most popular videos” category is probably anything but the most popular. I think they cherry pick which clips they want people to watch more of based on which shows demand the highest costing CPMs.

What if Arrested Development is the most popular? But since that show is not airing on TV they don’t want people to like it more, they want people to like The Office more so they can get those people to tune in on Thursdays to sell more advertising. Is their new show Community, which is on the top row for most popular, among the most viewed? Doubtful, I bet they want more people to be exposed to the show since they have a lot riding on it becoming a success. Does Hulu take stocking fees like in supermarkets where networks pay them to put their show on the homepage? Maybe.

For sure they have some good reasons why they don’t reveal which shows get the most views.

I think the correct way to do marketing, or the way the current landscape demands, can be explained using a metaphor having to do with comparing advertising to a rocket ship:

Whats Wrong With Big Rocket Ships (AKA Traditional Advertising):
1. Traditional rocket ships are big, complex and are explicitly designed to be controlled. These design requirements result in a huge increase in their cost and complexity, and decrease dramatically the probability of the success for the mission. Likewise, a traditional marketing plan is made to be as big and encompassing as possible. Since there is so much riding on it, the marketing must be controlled. With rocket ships and traditional marketing plans, it’s make it or break it.

2. A Rocket ship uses 80% of its fuel in lift off. Once it gets past the lift off stage its pretty much on its way. Likewise, it takes 80% of the marketing budget to launch a new campaign before it has a chance at catching on. What if the idea is a dud and you can’t tell until  after spending 80% of the budget?

3.With the rocket ship costing so much money and taking so much time, it needs to be successful. Traditionally we are continually looking for a “hit” in advertising, something that will spread and become part of pop culture. While trying to predict the likely success of a chosen brand message being a hit, inordinate amounts of money and energy are spent, often, all in vain. Who knows what will be a “hit”? Nobody.

The Solution To The Traditional Rocket Ship Is Replacing It With Hundreds Or More Mini-Rockets:
1. Mini-rockets are cheap to make and launch. And since you don’t have to rely on only one to succeed dramatically well, they don’t need to be built in with fail-proof security and reliability (the reason why traditional rockets cost so much and take so long to build.)

2. Continually measuring the mini-rockets as they go, you can build on the ones that are working and cut back on the ones that aren’t in real-time. Having a budget split up this way allows you to not waste more money than is needed before cutting back on ideas that aren’t working. By relinquishing control, the mini-rockets would be on their own, only bothering to send back whatever they discover.

3. No one knows what is going to be a hit. It’s also hard to tell which demographic will best respond to any particular media. But you stand a better chance at finding a hit with a hundred estimated guesses at a dozen different demographics than one big idea. Then, after launching the multiple mini rockets, you  can let the data tell you which one is the best and continue to fund that one.

This strategy requires the brand to forgo the single-minded brand proposition and embrace long tail thinking. Every brand has more than one potentially ideal consumer. But the big rocket ship’s only option is to target one demographic broadly to capture as many people in that demo as possible. This creates a bland campaign that doesn’t resonate perfectly with anyone since it’s trying to attract as many people as possible by being broad. Targeting the “edges” of the tail instead of the masses, or “head” of the tail, requires narrowing your list down to those most likely, most interested people and ignore everyone else.With mini-rockets you can target very specific demographics with a very specific message. Sure, the amount of people you are reaching is less but your chance for success is higher. This is also much cheaper. Target a dozen different demos and try sending a rocket to them all. These smaller niches, in aggregate, can be composed of as many people as the “head” of the tail and stand a better chance of accepting and spreading your brand.