Internet Marketing Predictions for 2011

With the start of the new year, I thought I'd throw out my predictions for the Internet marketing industry in this coming year.

And no "pansy predictions" here, I'm going all out...

• Hosting Company Crash - Web hosting companies have been hard hit over the past few years, but this is the year it's all going to crash. By the end of 2011, most of them will have been bought out by larger companies.
  
  All those $9.99 a month hosting providers will be gone, and what will be left are dedicated hosting services. These days, there are so many options for free hosting, including Blogger, Posterous, and Tumblr. Plus, people with no website-building knowledge can still create their own web presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.



• Facebook for Domain Names - Facebook will provide its users with a way to direct domain names to their servers. So imagine registering a domain name (www.mydomain.com), directing it to Facebook's servers, and seeing your Facebook account? That way, you can print "www.mydomain.com" on your business card, and have people land on your Facebook account or page.
  
  Blogger already provides this feature, allowing such users to completely customize their blogs, making them look anything but a Blogger blog. So why shouldn't Facebook do this too?



• Google Buys eBay - One space where Google has little market share is the eCommerce space. Yes, they do have Google Product Search and Google Checkout, but when it comes to dominating the retail sector of the Internet, you're talking eBay, Amazon, iTunes, et al.
  
  And buying eBay also gives Google access to PayPal, which will let it dominate the financial transaction space.
  
  Oh, and Facebook now allowing its users to set up e-commerce on Facebook Pages, only fuels the fire.



• Google to buy Twitter? Well Google already attempted to do this in 2009. But I think Google is going to feel ever-more pressured to become a major player in the social media arena. It's arch-enemy, Facebook, is only getting bigger. And as I reported a few days ago, Twitter still doesn't have a viable means of monetizing itself aside from getting injections of capital.
  
  On the other hand, Google doesn't need Twitter to be profitable. It only needs Twitter.
  
  And of course Twitter founder Evan Williams is no stranger to selling cool ideas to Google.



• The Beginning of the End for Affiliate Networks - the large networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare, Share A Sale, and Google Affiliate Network, are going to contract, lose money, and merge.
  
  This is because Internet marketing is making a shift towards display advertising.
  
  If you haven't already noticed but affiliate marketing has slowly lost its effectiveness over the past few years. Publishers are losing their income and finding it harder to earn those big bucks.
  
  This is because the Internet has become so mainstream, so saturated with consumers and vendors, that companies are having to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Where at one time it was easy for a merchant to convert an affiliate click into a sale, it's now tough for them to do with much more competition around.
  
  Just look at your own website. There are more websites competing with you than ever before. And in attempt to protect your traffic share, you've gone to great lengths to strengthen your reputation as an authority and thereby attract more inbound links. What you're doing is brand marketing.
  
  Instead of paying publishers for conversions or leads, advertisers are now simply looking to get their name out there. But don't think that CPM ads will make things easier for you. Instead, it will get harder. Advertisers will only buy CPM inventory from publishers who command a combination of massive page views with highly targeted audiences. What you need to do now is hone your audience down to just those people who want to buy stuff, and then build page views from there.   ✓