The Shift: The Evolving Market, Players and Business Models in a 2.0 World, a new book by Alcatel-Lucent's Allison Cerra and Christina James

There is no doubt an unprecedented shift is happening toward 2.0 that is causing ripples throughout an evolving ecosystem and value chain. To gain a better understanding of what was happening in the industry, Christina James and I decided to explore the changes by writing The Shift: The Evolving Market, Players and Business Models in a 2.0 World. It has been an interesting and eye opening experience.

Given the speed of the change, there was no way to include everything we discovered. For those of you who have seen the book, you probably noticed the tsunami of primary and secondary statistics pointing to new shifts in the ecosystem. That’s why Christina and I decided to start a blog to pick up the story.

On www.theshiftonline.com, you’ll find more evidence about the larger market factors that suggest the shift is continuing (or even shifting itself). It’s where we’ll cover primary research findings we didn’t have time (or space!) to mention in the book. And, of course, we’ll also point to secondary market data that corroborates the evidence or reflects a different point of view.

We’ll also have a variety of experts on tap as occasional guest bloggers to discuss the technological, operational and regulatory considerations as our 2.0 market continues to evolve.

Since I just can’t shake my marketing hat, let me reflect on an interesting story I found at liesdamnliesandstatistics.com. It seems Hulu finds itself in an unenviable position. According to comScore, Hulu’s viewership numbers declined from 44 million viewers in May to roughly 24 million in June – or did they? The reason for the question is that comScore recently introduced a new tracking system that distinguishes between ads and content.  Here’s the problem: We really don’t know if Hulu’s decrease is due to changes in reporting with the new system, its shift toward premium service or something in between.

Either way, the optics of moving from second to tenth place in traffic for a site that still largely relies upon advertisers does not bode well for Hulu. It certainly isn’t easy to get to reliable metrics of true user engagement (not simply visiting eyeballs), something I suspect comScore is attempting to get at with its revised system. However, this is just one example of how real-time, reliable user analytics married with opt-in user preferences will continue to escalate in importance in a 2.0 world. For the Hulus of the world that rely upon advertising as a critical element to their business model, this one capability could make all the difference.

- Allison

Allison Cerra leads Marketing, Communications and Public Affairs for the Americas Region. While “The Shift: The Evolving Market, Players and Business Models in a 2.0 World” contains U.S.-based research, it provides broad trend information relevant to the industry globally. A second edition is planned with research from Latin America.