What Little I Know…

What Little I know about San Francisco and Web 2.0 really came to light upon arrival to the city. It appears to be a metropolis who hasn’t quite fully executed their social stratification concept and as a result, the city can appear to be somewhat confusing to visitors.

San Francisco can proudly boast however, about their great out-lying scenery, amazing shoes, sour dough, great cocktails and restaurants. For example, I went to a vegan restaurant called Millennium. I ordered the chef’s personally designed tasting menu and was never disappointed, at any course of the meal. Who knew slivers of lettuce and other green vegetation of varying consistencies could taste so good. I encourage everyone who visits San Francisco to stop by Millennium for a meal.

As for Web 2.0, the possibilities are obvious for traditional off line products and specifically media within Web 2.0. The upcoming challenge however, will be getting all players on board in a timely fashion. It’s interesting though, while sitting in some of the sessions, I heard a lot of people make comments about print for example, saying it was ‘totally dead’. My concern, sitting there, was that other advertisers in the room would run out and blow up their business to create some sort of online medium, under a different brand to better separate them from their old dying one. No No No — a lot of print publishers represent some very strong brands that have been around for over a 100 years – you don’t want to blow that up; instead you want to compliment your business with the right set of online tools, strategies and yes – partners if needed.

The emergence of online social networks that dabble in the classified world have many of my publisher friends running scared. I encourage them nevertheless, to step back, do the due diligence and execute accordingly. Really understand what is in your current arsenal and what from that can you build on, as a conduit tool, when looking at the online extension of your business.

Now to close with the important things – this is my last night in San Francisco and need to know if I should run back to pick up these shoes – What do you think? Email me at beverly.crandon@ad-ition.com.