Well, if I didn’t already think I was working in the vortex of a huge shift, my own employer (Microsoft) put a exclamation point on it yesterday with the $6B acquisition of aQuantive. You can read more about the purchase and public statements here.

aQuantive is pretty interesting, bringing to Microsoft some very cool players in Razorfish/Avenue A - leaders in online/web presence.  Take the work done with Carnival Cruise lines here.  This site, Carnival Connections, is essentially a travel, e-commerce and social media site with cruise reviews (destinations and ships) as well as a section called "cruise talk" with user to user conversation forums.  I think I said once here: "there’s little point in visiting a vendor web site that doesn’t host user to user conversations."

Another interesting example is Daimler Chrysler’s Mobile Kids site. Think Secondlife on a small scale for immersive play for kids where they can accumulate points in "Mokitown" as they learn and demonstrate safe behaviors.   Choose your character, pick their clothes, decide how they travel… as a parent with small kids, I like this site - teaching your kids through games like this is often more effective than the more typical parent/child "lecture series" of daily life. (note:  it is no substitute for good parenting, but a little help is certainly welcome).

So, I don’t know what happens next, but to be sure, this is another clear sign of the monumental shift toward participative media - where your users and you share space and conversations with one another - you’re job, as I’ve said all along…is to figure out your role in that conversation.  The destination is the death of the "corporate voice" and the arrival/acceptance of the "blended voice" - you and your users have open, unfiltered conversations for the world to see.  And, let’s face it, as both a supplier and a user - this new destination is far more unpredictable and therefore a lot more interesting!

Sean

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