On February 25th, Razorfish hosted a search panel at our New York office. Despite the Snowicane, we had many clients, industry leaders and enthusiasts in attendance. Having been in search for 5 years, the event reminded me how much I enjoy being a search marketer.
We’ll be posting video clips of the panels soon, but in the meantime I want to share my personal highlights of the night (in no particular order):
I learned that some companies do have a grasp of how online behavior affects offline sales: Brian McDevitt, Head of Retail at Google, told us that the CEO of Macy’s is able to say that every dollar spent online at Macys.com influences $5.77 spent in stores within 10 days after an online purchase
Adam Heimlich, Group Search Director at Razorfish, reminded me why prognosticating on the future of search isn’t always a rewarding experience. Users move quickly to adopt new technologies if they’re useful. But big businesses adapt to change at a snail’s pace.
Doug McMillen, National Mobile Search Specialist at Microsoft, got me really excited about mobile. He compared mobile right now to the entrepreneurial spirit of the Internet in the 90′s and early 00′s, when hugely successful companies like Zappos, Netflix and Amazon were built around the Internet. My question is: who will be among the first to effectively build businesses around mobile as a medium? Those who figure it out will become the companies that competitors will spend years trying to catch up to.
By: Jamie Ross
Tags: Razorfish Search