So what was their point? They were just gate keepers, and sites like Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia along with direct to consumer campaigns by hotels and airlines opened the gate to the masses. I know what you’re thinking though: Orbitz and such are the travel agents now. Yes, they are if you consider bundling hotels and flights together, but now Kayak just takes your straight to the airline site if it is cheaper. In either case, we are more informed and pay less for the access to information. If you ask me, travel agents were the epitome of segregated information elitism. They could have done things to prevent themselves from being here now, but their inability to adapt to new media killed them.

And now advertising agencies are doing the same thing. Ad Agencies don’t own the product or brand, they don’t own the connection to the media and they don’t have any tools us regular folk have either.

Social Media is the thorn in ad agencies sides. They call it snake oil for two reasons:

1. The mindset of a traditional marketer is the exact opposite of what is needed on Twitter or Facebook. You can’t repeat the same message without being interactive and expect people to read it, or care, or not get frustrated. Why hire people that usually blare one way messages to your customers to run the interactive communication?
2. The magic behind the campaign is transparent. There is no glamour in being a top social media worker. It’s like having the title Best Conversationalist With An Agenda. You are going to have to love your product, your customers and your product category. Agencies can’t love them all at the same time.

So run your own social media campaigns. Set up multiple Twitter accounts, get your fan pages and groups up and running on your own. Encourage your employees to use those sites, with some scrutiny, to build more content than the next guy. Sooner or later, you’ll start to see the swell of a community that is a perfect marketing opportunity and by then you’ll know more about them than any agency could figure out.

The best thing about social media, is the instruction manual is in the medium itself. You know your products, customers and their quirks, why trust it to some agency that doesn’t know what you know?

Other agency services are up for grabs too.

Need a logo or graphics you can’t do yourself? Why get 3 to choose from in a agency and pay thousands when you can pay some $200 and get 221 to choose from at contest based hatchwise.com. The logo at the top of this page was produced there and I’ve used it for 3 other company logos. It’s great, cheap and gives me WAY more options. I can collaborate with the designers, message them directly and get really specific on what I would like and designers are more than happy to help out if that means they win the prize.

Need an ad produced? Crowd source. The best performing ads at the Super Bowl this year were ideas from customers, or produced by customers and in some cases written, produced and starred customers. With iMovie, Adobe Premiere and other easy software to use, a little bit of research and some time you can pretty much do anything an agency can, for less, without the attitude.

Why do you think agencies in special niche agencies pop up like new media and interactive marketing? It’s because most other agencies drop the ball in these areas. If you really don’t think you have the skill, then hire a specialized agency in that field.

Finally, we are seeing a tilt towards the small business owner. And that’s the way it should be.

Why? Because those big agencies have not adapted their vision, or their staff, attitude or their mission. And they better if they don’t want to become the next travel agency.

1. The Tablet PC
2. Geo
3. Realtime Search
4. Chrome OS
5. HTML5
6. Mobile Video
7. Augmented Reality
8. Mobile Transactions
9. Android
10. Social CRM

I’ll give Erick Schonfeld credit for coming up with a good list, and a great title too (which I completely stole) but there are a few emerging on this list that won’t rock 2010, in fact they’ll probably flop and be found on eBay shortly.

First, the Tablet PC has been around for a while and hasn’t blown up in a good way yet. They are still too heavy for ease of use and the term tablet doesn’t help any. I’m thinking of the Flintstones… Let’s also remember that thinner tablets are improvements, but that doesn’t always mean much lighter. Think of the weight of the iPhone 3GS at 135 grams, and the new Apple iSlate tablet is reported to have a 10 or 11 inch screen. Assuming similar technology, and let’s hope that it is more than a glorified iPhone, at 16:9 aspect ratio this will make it at least (with generous assumptions) double the weight of the iPhone. With a screen that won’t be very productive due to size and the obvious laptop competition it seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice will suffer the same fate as the Segway. UPDATE: Lenovo may have a hybrid laptop/tablet that might defy my prediction.

Geo is great, useful and the infrastructure is already there, and definitely will ‘Rock 2010′.

Realtime Search – Already underway and if search providers can manage to rank them like normal search results perhaps by scanning the included links to prevent erroneous Twitter keyword stuffing then we will see the true live web come to life.

Chrome OS is slated to be a huge deal, but not everything Google touches turns to gold; remember Google Radio Ads? Chrome Browser has done well and recently surpassed Safari, Apple’s browser that made a splash a few years ago. Some issues with Windows 7 and Adobe Flash have plagued it but they tend not be widespread.

Safari vs Chrome Market Share

HTML5? Look, I am a bona fide computer nerd, but even I find this stuff boring. It may perform well, but no one is going to jump up and down about how great HTML5 is. I doubt it will rock 2010, but will merely go as planned.

Mobile Video – Verizon Wireless (US) has been trying to push this for years and it has done OK, but doubtful it will rock 2010. Mobile screens are too small to enjoy worthwhile content (and ad space) and coupled with poor sound quality it is less likely to engage users/viewers with the intensity of their new 50 inch flat screens.

Augmented Reality will be huge. Couple this with Google Maps and their famous Street View, you have a whole new platform. Much like Second Life was hyped for a while, Augmented Reality will be your first life, digitized and layered with more information that you ever need to know. Add Geo into the mix and it’s barely virtual reality, it’s just better reality.

Mobile Transactions are close, but I’m guessing 2011. It must be remembered that anyone that has worked the phone banks at a successful dot com will tell you over and over again that people use their mobile phones to call to order a product they see on the internet right in front of them. Credit card fraud is an issue and the same psychology will apply to their phones. Just a note to those that do this: Every order that is placed over the phone gets processed online anyway. Do you think they mail in their credit card requests?

Android – I personally LOVE Google’s mobile phone OS, Android. Why will it rock 2010? It has an open platform, great interface and it is light years ahead of Blackberry and Palm. It beats iPhone in most user tests (once the branding aspect is removed), and it is on the same path as Windows to beat Apple again.

Social CRM – Customer Relationship Management is hard enough already, but the disambiguation effect makes it harder to please someone. Helping customers on Twitter is great, but it is the equivalent of yelling across the room to help someone with a private problem. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it. This will be the future of CRM, but 2010 is a bit early to call it rockin‘.

So the 5 Technologies That Will Rock 2010?

1. Geo
2. Realtime Search
3. Chrome OS
4. Augmented Reality
5. Android

The others? Nah….