Internet marketers, cyberspace is here

What happens to your Internet marketing strategy when the Internet itself expands beyond the realm of desktops, laptops and hand held devices and becomes ubiquitous? For years, we’ve been hearing about how cyberspace is coming, but it’s finally here. William Gibson, the American-Canadian science-fiction writer, better known by his Neuromancer novel and by coining the term “cyberspace,” stated last year in a Rolling Stone interview, “When I wrote Neuromancer in 1984, cyberspace already existed for some people, but they didn’t spend all their time there. So cyberspace was there, and we were here. Now cyberspace is here for a lot of us, and there has become any state of relative nonconnectivity. There is where they don’t have Wi-Fi. In a world of superubiquitous computing, you’re not gonna know when you’re on or when you’re off. You’re always going to be on, in some sort of blended-reality state. You only think about it when something goes wrong and it goes off.”

Image by oooOmmrrOooo via Flickr

Back in February, while braving the busy Toronto streets downtown–believe me, braving is the right word to use for walking outside in Canada during winter time–I saw something different in the large display windows for The Bay. Most passersby were initially oblivious to it, but then started noticing the displays in the store were actually reacting to their movements.
You can find more about the technology behind The Bay’s immersive interactive displays here and here.
Then the summer came, and Radiohead released its fantastic House of Cards video, where no cameras or lights were used, just data, allowing a 3-D rendering and manipulation of a live performance. You can see the YouTube video below to get an idea of it, but for a cooler demo, try it out through the Google 3-D viewer. The potential of this technology is enormous both for video surveillance in areas of high risk and for major events such as concerts and soccer games.
Finally, when attending Ignite NYC back in September, I learned that Botanicalls was offering kits that would allow plants to post updates via Twitter whenever they needed water! They actually announced that back in February, so I was kind of last one to know. From all the unusual and odd uses of Twitter, that one certainly takes the cake. After you water your little green ones, they even send you tweets saying “Thanks!”
While some of these uses seem either inconsequential or just plain fads, there’s increasing evidence that cyberspace is spreading outside your computer or mobile screens. At this point, it’s hard to say if all this is leading us to a Orwellian world of mass-surveillance or to a smarter world where an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet will translate to a greener, kinder and more sustainable reality.
For the readers of Biznology, it’s important to ensure that your Internet marketing strategy accounts for this trend, expanding beyond the conventional Web and reaching out to the cyberspace that’s no longer there, but right here, in the streets, stadiums, and even in your backyard.