While participating at Adobe’s recent Online Marketing Symposium in San Francisco, I heard consistency across a sampling of two hundred digital marketers; with emphasis on the retail, financial services and travel industries.

There was unison across three points: 

1)  Social is ready for serious measurement in the digital marketing mix;
2)  Social dialog management belongs to Marketing; and
3)  If interns are the talented staff running social media, who is doing the heavy lifting.

Why is it that there seems to be such an oversupply of media inventory on the Internet.  Or is it just a lack of demand? Something that has always struck me about publishing on the Internet is that it’s so easy and the cost of production relatively low.  Consider the growth of user generated content, social media and mobile applications over the last few years as proof of this. Is all this content just digital junk or a treasure chest of supply?

In recent months I've been following the rise of content farms , a topic that a few journalists are starting to write about, but one that is already having a huge impact on the web.  These companies are churning out literally thousands of pieces of content every week.  In fact Demand Media - one of the leading companies in this space - is pumping out 4,000 new pieces of content every day -

The pace of change in the Internet over the past 10 years has been stunning. Who could have foreseen the massive uptake of search, social networking and e-commerce, which have truly transformed the way we conduct our business and personal lives?

What is even more striking is that this pace of change is not slowing down. Who knows what we'll see over the next decade. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say we'll see even more personalized and targeted use of the Internet in our business and private lives.