I believe  lets rewind about six months back when a state head of a political party took a very small decision in their scheme of things. It was peak campaigning time in Rajasthan. What with the assembly elections round the corner and all the parties had heightened their pitch of campaigning. Somewhere in the midst of all the ‘garma-garml’ of campaigning somebody Important finally relented and said ‘Chalo internet marketing bhi kar late hain” what followed was unprecedented. In the following days to come. Yet another significant state going into elections added internet to their media mix, and by the time the general elections concluded there were more than 15 political parties. Big and small who had invested in this medium.

The total spends in this elections alone ranged from Rs 10cr-Rs20crs as per various industry sources. Not mega bucks, but significant because politics was almost like the last bastions to fall as far as “New Medium’ was concerned. It was a giant step for the medium as it broke a lot traditional mindsets that this was not a medium for the masses. And all it took was one small decision in a state which has among the lowest internet penetration in the country. This in a sense sums up the power this medium holds as we move ahead.

Five year from now ……..i guess this is too many generations ahead in the cyber age to actually predict any thing. Just yesterday I saw a slew of status updates on face book discussing how outdates on face book discussing how outdated a re-read of Bill Gates’ book, The Road Ahead’ feels now So it’s really futile to second guess a medium that is growing at this speed.

Yes what I can say for sure is what with more than 80million internet users, more than 400 million mobile users. Advertising spends growing at 45 percent per annum, and new advertisers coming onto this medium every day. Along with current advertisers increasing their spends significantly, social media exploding on to the scene, and a decade old search firm already being threatened by anti-trust laws across the globe, and a leaked twitter documents stating that they want to be the heart beat of the planet with more than a billion users, the endless opportunities of the ‘new mediums’ are Right Here , Right Now