The key is to start at the end and work backward.

Consider the example of a print advertising campaign enhanced with QR Codes, Digital Watermarks, or other embedded signaling. Whatever the signaling methodology, the technology itself is not the strategy. Instead it is merely a tactical weapon to trigger a desired consumer response.

Originally users provided instructions to Microsoft computers with an esoteric string of alphanumeric characters preceded by the command line prompt -- C:\. By the early 1990s the Windows icon-based interface had displaced the command line. Three years ago Apple launched the next evolutionary stage with the App Store. One of the chief implications for Apps is their ability to transform conventional media into a computerized user interface as well.

Introduction

Today we interact with Internet media nearly as routinely we checked our wristwatches to read time-of-day fifteen years ago. While the conversion might seem radical to consumers from 1996, the advent of portable connected devices such as smartphones and tablet computers implies an even more fundamental change in the future. In short, all media shall become interactive – not just Internet media.

A little under two years ago, Inside Digital Media predicted that sponsors would ultimately demand they only pay for video ads that actually get watched. (Thinking the Unthinkable About Video Ads – September 18, 2009). We reasoned the success of the cost-per-action pricing of Google AdWords would force change. Since sponsors only pay Google when viewers “click on” AdWords text, they would ultimately apply such a cost-per-action standard to banner and video ads as well.

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Last week a YouTube executive provided confirmation at WPP Group’s Global Video Summit. WPP Group is a leading advertising and media management company. YouTube’s Product Manager for Video Monetization, Baljeet Singh, was a Summit guest where he forecast half of video ads by 2015 would be cost-per-view. He explained how it is starting on the Internet.

Collecting contact information has always been a necessary, but laborious, activity. It’s necessary because businesses need customers and customers are normally obtained from prospects. Although smartphone applications like Bump attempt to automate the process, they require both parties exchanging information to use the same app. Even then the apps don’t always work reliably, or fit a user’s preferred contacts software program.

Thus, gathering business cards is likely to remain a popular custom. Smartphone apps like Business Card Reader can automate data entry, but are only truly useful when the contacts programs in portable devices coincide with those in a business’s central computers. Moreover, once card information is entered, recipients have little incentive to keep the card...