50 Shades of Digital Marketing Gray

Something we don’t talk about much in interactive marketing is what's broken or perhaps on its deathbed. 

Regular readers know I have a severe case of #FOMO about my industry and its insanely ascending evolution. As if that isn’t enough to keep my mind in overdrive, I am the same way about technology, trends, tactics and strategies that might have outlived their usefulness - or are ready for an overhaul.

So I put together this little list of things that I have been thinking about over the past month or so, but I really have no definitive answer to. What are your thoughts?

1. Location-based marketing — do we ever talk about Foursquare anymore?
2. Gamification of apps? While I don't see this as a dead medium, badges seem played out, and leader boards pull a close second.
3. Why are people so interested in getting rid of email marketing?
4. Why are so many agencies telling their clients to pay for monitoring and reporting when they don't know what to do with the analytics they have?
5. Why are clients paying for analytics that they are not optimizing against because the optimization exceeds budget allocation?
6. When is webisodic content going to really take stride?
7. When will podcasting and Internet radio programming become automotive centric?
8. What's the next form of content beyond the BIG 3 (copy, images and AV)?
9. Will content marketing become yesterday's marketing talk of the town?
10. When will we ever actually get actionable content from a social media convention?
11. Who will attempt to dethrone Facebook? And with what?
12. Is the new MySpace even on your radar?
13. How can we make UGC easier for the marketing community to engage?
14. When will Twitter give us more than 140 characters?
15. What's the next in-app #hashtag-like tool?
16. Will Instagram ever not be a square, or is the brand entrenched in this format?
17. Vine — should anybody think of it as standalone marketing tactic?
18. When will Google, Yahoo & Bing give social graph information on user searches?
19. Why is Linkedin advertising so stupid expensive?
20. Why is there no blogger ad network worth using?
21. Why does a speaker have to have a book published in order to get a keynote?
22. Why do RSS aggregators come and go with no real definition?
23. Why aren't more analytics based on real-time API feeds to make infographics dynamic?
24. When will fonts no longer be a browser based issue?
25. What's next for social commerce?
26. How can more bloggers easily monetize their efforts without whoring their content?
27. Why are there so few platform agnostic social graph ports?
28. To podcast or not to podcast?
29. Google glass — yes we have to start somewhere, but let's get with the next version shall we? Daddy needs to watch football while shopping!
30. How can more apps leverage crowdsourcing for real-time content while making the UX easier?
31. Story apps — has anyone really got it right yet?
32. Social scoring does not take into account real-world influence. Why?
33. Banner bars. Really? Why hasn’t someone put a stake through the heart of this format?
34. When is afterlife (AKA "Digital Death") social messaging going to gain popularity?
35. Cyberterrorism on your brand. Who will be the first destroyed?
36. When will Facebook introduce custom layout properties?
37. Is "consulting" the new word for "unemployed?"
38. Who really uses TweetDeck?
39. How can social monitoring really expect to continue with absurd pricing models?
40. Pinterest – are you really using it properly?
41. What is the perfect amount of social distribution?
42. Has any mobile app in the past year been that disruptive?
43. Is Apple losing its magic touch? The brand evaluation would indicate no. But what does your gut tell you?
44. Remember the app "Bump?" What is the New World business card?
45. QR Codes – really?
46. Will more brands seek to align themselves with entertainment directives (i.e. Red Bull, Mountain Dew, GoPro)?
47. Is there a social gap present that needs a new channel?
48. What are the next steps to create social fabric within diversified content?
49. Educate or innovate actionable content. Which does your client want more?
50. When will people stop writing numbered posts to gain readership?