Some thoughts from the Guardian’s ‘Changing Media’ summit

March 26, 2007
by Richard Gregory

Listening last week to speeches about the industry challenges for mobile marketing, or Lord Puttnam’s demands for regulation in the world of video games, or the challenge of monetisation for virtual communities such as Second Life and Habbo, I suddenly felt like search marketing had become a mature industry. If so, then these ‘up and coming’ industries could usefully learn some lessons from the rapid evolution of the search engine marketing sector.

As UK Chair of SEMPO we’re already embarking on the first steps of self-regulation through the development of a code of conduct and this is something that definitely marks the arrival of maturity within the sector.

We’ve also seen the kind of monetisation models in search that have converted Google into the largest media property in the world (it hasn’t done any harm to Yahoo!, or Microsoft for that matter). I’m sure it will pay dividends for new industries to learn from this new financial model. A recent article from the US magazine Information Week points out that the absence of a quality search platform in the mobile space is preventing its growth.

The important point is, search will be a key part of every one of these new industries, and might just provide the greatest monetisation opportunity for all of them.