The one or two people out there who doubt the power of the Internet need only look at the mind-boggling response to Susan Boyle’s April 11 performance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” As I write this, it’s estimated that it’s been viewed more than 100 million times – which seems like a low estimate. Thousands of sites have linked to the main posting on YouTube or thrown up their own copies.

It’s an indictment on our society that people are shocked that a plain-looking 47-year-old woman has the voice of an angel. We suspect that she could NOT have gotten a recording contract on her own, despite her talent. We think recording studio executives would dismiss her because of her looks. This harks back to Shanna’s entry on sex in advertising/marketing, “Where’s Rosie the Riveter When You Need Her?” That Rosie is actually pretty sexy. Did real life female riveters look like that?

People weep when they watch Ms. Boyle sing “I Dreamed A Dream” because she not only bravely faces a studio audience filled with smirking people – sending them to their feet with wild applause – but she packs so much power and emotion into her performance that you think the song must have personal meaning for her. She jokes about being single, “never been kissed” and living with her cat Pebbles, but isn’t that just bravado?

One thing to take away from the response to Susan Boyle is that people who want any kind of audience at all outside their little corner of the world – and that means outside a one-block radius – MUST put their message online. Why can’t people spell? Why do they turn to the Internet to make friends or be entertained? Or get their news? Shop? Or do anything for that matter? Because “new media” is the massage.

Talk about an online makeover. Skittles’ site now hosts their Twitter feed, Facebook page and YouTube Channel, as well as the normal product information and contact us form. So how is this done?  It’s pretty simply actually.  They created a widget that lives in the upper left hand corner of their site and when you click on a specific tab, it displays that specific social networks page.

This has a great benefit of showing their users all the ways they can connect with Skittles socially on the web.  Sometimes this is where marketers drop the ball.  They create great online tools such as a Facebook Page or YouTube Channel but users don’t know they exist.  Therefore they spent the time and money but have no support structure to promote it.

One con for me to Skittles’ approach is that the new site isn’t “pretty.” The widget overlaps some of the elements of the social networks and detracts from that interaction.  This execution could also deteriorate the site’s Search Engine Optimization due to lack of content.  By not incorporating product specific content into their web copy, search engines will not be able to know exactly what information the user will find on that site.

An alternative for Skittles would have been to display these social networking tools on their website by including a link for the Facebook Page and YouTube channel as well as a RSS feed of the Twitter chatter (simply Twitter Search).

Overall, though, one thumb up for promoting social networking tools and one thumb down for execution.

PS – I hope they know that Facebook will soon change its page design.

PPS – They should have secured all Twitter URL names associated with Skittles.  Someone not related to the product scooped up Twitter.com/skittles_com and is trying to sell/giveaway netbooks.

We all have an opinion of what the new year will hold.  My opinion is that we’ll see a focus on accountability in marketing.

Since the economy is in a “depression,” the marketing budget tends to be the first cut or minimized.  Though this is counter intuitive to what we may have been taught in school or told in the field.  Interpublic Group’s Mediabrands’ chief executive, Nick Brien was quoted in the WSJ as saying, “Ads have to get combative in bad times.  It’s a dog fight, and it’s about getting leaner and meaner.”

Though I’m not aggressive by nature, I do agree with getting “leaner and meaner,” or at least focusing and making your marketing budget work for you and making it accountable. These two reasons are why I’m passionate about digital media.

Accountability lies at the heart of digital media’s wonderful tracking abilities.  Though these abilities can vary from site or service, the basics are the number of people that see the message and the number of people that take action by clicking on your ad.  The analytic in me likes tracking on a more micro level.  I love to see what specific ad (size, copy and channel) is doing the best and then optimizing the campaign.  This gives the biggest bang for the buck (making your budget work for you).

Though the same WSJ article states that “banner ads will be the new junk mail,” this tracking information is not just available for online banner campaigns.  It’s also accessible for SEM, email blasts, widgets and even some social networks. Please keep in mind I’m not media biased.  I love the analytics in other mediums too.

For example, gross rating points (GRPs) in radio and television are a form of tracking.  Though these numbers are based on small sample sizes versus actual numbers, if your agency posts its holding these vendors accountable and making your budget work for you. Also, out of home is building up its technology arsenal.  This includes facial recognition of demography (young/old, male/female) to deliver a targeted message.  And sending information to your cell phone as you walk by (thank you, Bluetooth).  And, with technology, comes trackability.

So, take this time of the New Year and think about how to add some accountability to your marketing plan.

Some years ago, I had the rare opportunity to observe a couple of talented guys in Oahu use a throwing net to catch fish. I also had the chance to watch my kids learn to dance and sing the hukilau, a traditional Hawaiian event based on communal net fishing. Both memories came back to me recently as I mulled over a deceptively simple question: why do we call the internet the “web”? Or perhaps, even more specifically, what do nets and webs have in common with our experience of the internet?

I can hear you saying: well, clearly, Paul, you over-thinking pedant, we compare the internet to a net or web because it’s shaped like one. Hmm, I say. But how, exactly? Are the hyperlinks the knots in the net, the intersections in the web? Or are the pages? Where’s the string or the fiber? And most troublesome of all, what is it that the web was designed to catch?

If you follow the thinking in an old blog entry from Zeus Jones one answer might be that the internet was built to catch the elusive fish of group consciousness, a sort of surrogate telepathy where we can see true interconnectedness at a glance.

Or to put it in far more ancient terms, you could say the web was built to capture akashic records.

Anyway I look at it, though, I’ve started to consider the internet as much of a hukilau as it is a net. We’ve all made it what it is, we all use it together, and not a day goes by that it doesn’t haul up a fresh catch of shiny new ideas.