So last week I popped down to the big smoke for Internet World, a online/media/marketing type trade show with seminars from a range of people from the BBC to Microsoft to Mozilla.

What was interesting was the general 'noob' vibe around the place (punter-wise at least). Not that I claim to be a veteran of online marketing, but there were huge crowds around the 'older' online seminars - Google University, basic SEO, PPC etc. Conversely, there seemed to be a lack of interest in the newer side - 'web 3.0' stuff like virtual worlds, in-game advertising etc.

Anyway, clientele aside, I took a few random (being the operative word - this is by no means a complete summary) snippets from the various seminars which I thought note-worthy.

> Mobile - Interesting talk from BBC Worldwide. Only 22% of UK mobile users have 3G. Google the most visited website through mobile in the UK, followed by the BBC and O2's mobile portal - simple, information driven content.

> Virtual Worlds - 80% of Internet users are expected to have virtual world self within the next 4 years (not sure of the source of that stat - slightly dubious myself). This being the way people will predominantly interact online in the future, including for ecommerce.

> Viral Marketing - Many commented on the difficulties of getting sufficient momentum for Viral. The key being the core proposition or product has to be rock solid and something the customer would ordinarily forward/talk about anyway (see the Dyson AirBlade). The value agencies then add is the delivery mechanism and 'packaging' of this idea to ensure it is passed along. 'Fun games' don't work any more and distribution costs need to be comparable to the creative costs to gain sufficient momentum.

> Presentation from Thomson.co.uk - currently the highest trafficked travel agent online. In general there is a 20% year-on-year movement from offline to online holiday transactions.

> They've made a huge investment in technology and agencies - WebCredible and FoolProof for Usability/User testing, IntelliTracker/Visual Sciences for Analytics. Lots of A/B and MultiVariate testing and a huge focus on removing obstacles to conversion. They use Tealeaf (http://tealeaf.com) for real time analysis of customer activity.

I realise this is a pretty random assortment of snippets - I might flesh it out a little more if I get chance. However the really interesting one for me was Virtual Worlds - Justin Bovington, from Rivers Run Red, Ed Bartlett from IGA and Phil Guest from Habbo Hotel did a great job of debating the ins and outs of virtual worlds, raising some interesting points along the way. I'll try to blog that fully over the next couple of weeks...

More complete write-ups can be found here and here.

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