About the nature and future of interactive marketing

The essence of interactivity is exchange. Degree of contingency and frequency are among the more important dimensions of a marketing exchange. Technology enables and enhances these dimensions on a scale and scope unprecedented in human history. The author argues that information technology and the collaborative potential of the Internet may eventually change human cognitive processes as much or more than writing technology did. He offers anecdotal evidence that technology-assisted human collaboration can systematically lead to synergetic, “previously unthinkable,” (and therefore unpredictable) breakthroughs. While it is therefore not reasonable to expect accurate predictions of what the breakthroughs in interactive marketing and “e-business” will be, it is possible to think about ways to discover them earlier. Two areas of research are suggested as being of special interest: whether or not the collaborative potential of technology is likely to transform business-as-games-against-competitors into business-as-games-with-customers; and what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for interactive technology to lead to breakthrough creativity.