The digital world is changing the way we communicate. Poor readership is forcing newspapers to dwindle in size and number. The once-storied heft of the Sunday New York Times no longer requires a weightlifter’s physique. In a harbinger of things to come, the Detroit Free Press recently announced it will end daily home delivery in March and shift its resources to an online edition. The media conglomerate Tribune Co., publishers of some of the nation’s most respected newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, has filed for bankruptcy. Even the Tribune’s 23 television stations couldn’t save it from doom. Ratings figures are down across the board on national television news programs, and even local news broadcasts are suffering from poor viewership. Book sales are at all-time lows, forcing struggling book publishers to close divisions and cut e-book deals with digital publishers like iPhone and eBook. 

Led by the up-and-coming digital natives, wired-in teens and 20-somethings who have grown up with computers, cell phones, Nintendo, Xboxes and iPods, communication is becoming increasingly digital. When people need information today, they Google it. You get exactly the information you want and you get it instantly. And with the advent of wireless technology, Blackberries and smart phones like Apple’s iPhone, you’re no longer tied to a computer terminal. Information is available on the go — anywhere, any time.

The downside of this digital revolution is the loss of face-to-face human interaction that has been the basis for human communication for the past two thousand years. As discussed in last Friday’s post, UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Gary Small is among a growing number of scientists who fear that the next generation’s penchant for instant messaging (IM) and text messaging is degrading our ability to read and understand facial cues and body language. While there is sure to be some initial fallout, over the next decade business will continue to change to accommodate our increasing reliance on all things digital. A growing number of workers already work remotely, connecting to customers and the home office via the internet and phone. Digital conferencing, web cams and screen-sharing technology make it increasingly unnecessary to meet face-to-face. It won’t be long before we spend most of our time in a virtual world.

For business owners, the challenge will be to embrace the digital world of up-and-coming consumers while maintaining a connection to older, less tech-savvy customers through traditional communication paths. Because industry experts expect communication to be nearly all-digital within a decade, it will be critical to monitor your communication balance and shift resources and emphasis accordingly. With an increasing portion of business coming from digital channels, the foresight and flexibility to take advantage of new communication opportunities like Facebook, You Tube and Twitter will drive business success. On Friday, we’ll talk about how search engine optimization can maximize your ability to succeed in the digital world.

Some scientists believe the wired world is significantly changing the way people read, learn and interact. UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Gary Small postulates that our daily dependence on digital technology is actually altering the way our brains work. It’s the Darwin principle on fast forward. Small believes fundamental change in the way humans communicate is coming not in millennia but within a few years.

Small and others in the psychiatric community say that society’s emphasis on technology is causing people to lose the basic social skills upon which human interaction has been based for thousands of years. Young people who interact with their peers almost strictly via Internet instant messages and text messages are losing the ability to read facial expressions during conversations. With fewer daily interactions taking place face-to-face, the ability to understand important body language cues is being lost. Loss of use is causing the brain circuits used in face-to-face communication to wither, Small asserts. The result is that we are becoming a society of social misfits. Particularly among young people in their teens and 20s, the so-called digital natives, social awkwardness and isolation are increasing. Interest in traditional classroom learning is lagging. The communication and social interactions that define us as a human society are changing.

Small, the author of iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, likens today’s digital communication revolution to the dramatic societal changes precipitated by humankind’s move from oral to written communication more than 2,000 years ago and, more recently, the advent of television. At the time, both raised strong concerns among the established members of society, despite which, both prevailed and have significantly changed the way we communicate.

With these digital natives poised to enter the workforce and become the next major consumer group, what does this mean for business owners? To a degree, the established values of the current business community will mold new entrants in its own image. Digital natives will be forced to acquire at least some social skills to survive and compete in an environment that still values face-to-face communication. But as the number of digital natives in business grows, they and their viewpoint will exercise increasing control over how business is enacted. As the reigns of power are handed from one generation to the next, the preference for digital communication will change the way we do business.

Next Tuesday: Positioning yourself to meet the communication challenges of tomorrow.

The mobile web is marketing’s next frontier. Our growing dependence on cell phones, coupled with the increasing affordability of smartphones and the quickly evolving sophistication of mobile technology, is changing the way people access information. Search engine optimization for the mobile web is poised to become the next big marketing tool in the quest to lure potential customers to your website.

Laptops and wireless technology freed us from the rooted immobility of desktop computers. Mobile technology has increased our mobility. In the past 20 years, U.S. cell phone use has increased from 34 million to 203 million. The majority of America’s 20- and 30-year-old consumers use cell phones exclusively; they no longer have telephone landlines. Worldwide, more than 2 billion people own cell phones and the number is growing exponentially every year.

The increasing sophistication of mobile technology has greatly expanded the capability of the average cell phone and led to the development of computer-capable smartphones. Apple’s iPhone, the BlackBerry and a growing number of similarly-featured competitors now allow us to tap into the Internet while we’re on the run.  Mobile searches and multimedia search engines for mobile applications tripled in 2007. By 2010, the mobile market is expected to be worth $3.8 billion, tripling to $12 billion by 2012. In the near future, search engine optimization (SEO) efforts will focus on tapping into the vast marketing potential of this quickly emerging consumer market. SEO for the mobile web is the wave of the future.

Today’s challenge is to create industry-wide standards and technology platforms that will allow for the consistent and universal application of SEO techniques to mobile technology. As an industry, we’re finding that the application of current Internet-based SEO techniques to the specific requirements of mobile technology and the mobile web require a little tweaking. To become an effective marketing tool, mobile search optimization will need to provide the same consistent and measurable results achievable by Internet SEO programs. The day is soon coming, however, when mobile search optimization will join traditional Internet SEO and social media marketing as part of a comprehensive Internet marketing program.

Keep watching this space. As a leader in the SEO industry, Increase Visibility will let you know when all the kinks have been worked out and mobile search optimization is ready to roll.