In the 20th century, it was said that, “Content is king.”  Consumers and marketing professionals alike have observed this after years and years of experience with traditional media outlets such as television and print.  Marketing professionals know their message will reach wider, larger audiences when bundled with content that is in high demand by a large and varied group of consumers such as an episode of ABC’s Lost or an issue of the New York Times.  Since there’s good marketing money to be made by producing content that reaches a wide audience, an impetus to increase the quality and value of content was placed on content producers.  The result is (arguably) better television programming, better magazines, and better news papers.  The consumer wins in this situation at the cost of seeing some marketing materials along the way.  Thankfully, humanity didn’t forget who the King was when the 21st century dawned on mankind and ushered with it the internet as a ubiquitous part of our lives!  Competition is so fierce for a consumer’s attention that quality content has become a baseline starting point, and not just something to separate the NBC’s from the CBS’s.  The internet can be like a full cable package:  5,000,000,000,000 channels and nothing’s on.  

If nothing else, this past year has been a year where buzzwords evolved faster than Cro-Magnons in a Geiko commercial.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: viral, “Web 2.0″
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: social media

Why? Because marketers began to understand that in the maturing new media landscape, there’s more value in creating and sustaining relationships and conversations than in getting a video of your slightly dorky executive playing guitar maximum traction on YouTube.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: mobile marketing OR online video OR widgets
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: cross-platform, integrated campaigns

Why? Because once we got over the cool factor of these shiny new channel toys, we realized that for now, they’re pretty much only ready to augment existing channels, rather than replace them.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: Digg
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: StumbleUpon

Why? Digg started out the year strong, but towards the end of 2007, scandals regarding Digg’s treatment of their most valuable asset–the community of power users–had seriously tarnished the social media site’s reputation. Meanwhile, StumbleUpon brought back a sense of wonder, exploration and surprise to jaded web surfers.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: Myspace
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: Facebook

Why? Mike thinks it was Virginia Tech. I think it was massive eyestrain from annoying banner ads and exceptionally poor user experience. Either way, while Myspace still has the numbers, by the end of the year, Facebook owned the buzz. Even their missteps (**cough**Beacon**cough**) were more newsworthy than what Myspace was finally getting right.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: Second Life
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: MyBlogLog / Twitter

Why? Hmmm… spend hours and cash creating an animated virtual self, and hope you run into someone you’d want to network with while running around Second Life, or spend a half hour creating a profile and start building avatar recognition where the best and brightest minds in the blogosphere are converging and conversing? What sounds like a worthwhile use of your time, in retrospect?

So that’s our recap of how the biggest buzzwords of 2007 evolved over the course of the year. What’s the big picture in all this? That marketers are beginning to both adopt the new tools that the web (and Web 2.0) offer and understand how they fit in a long-term, sustainable interactive marketing and digital advertising plan.

That’s a huge jump to make in only a year, and obviously, not everyone has made it. However, overall these trends are great news for those who work in marketing and advertising on the web, and the brands and companies they represent.

The more we all get on the same page in terms of strategy, goals and value, the better we can all be in effectively contributing our part of the effort.