New Year’s Eve is always a time to reflect back on the past year, and this year we have the added bonus of being able to look back on the past decade.

The years 2000-2009 have been amass with great changes in our technological landscape. Today I went searching for timelines and found an excellent one on PoynterOnline where David Shedden has been keeping track of the history of new media and online journalism from 1969 to 2009. If you have the time to read through the entire timeline you’ll be amazed by where we’ve come in 40 years. It’s striking to see what changes have evolved in this past decade, and even within the past 3-4 years. The growth and changes are truly remarkable.

Timeline: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

I don’t think anyone could have accurately predicted in December of 1999 where this past decade would have taken us technologically. I won’t even venture to guess what changes we’ll see in the years ahead, and I have no doubt that they will be awe-inspiring and continue to change the way we communicate.

Best Wishes for a Happy & Healthy New Year, and here’s to looking ahead for a new decade filled with new and exciting technological advances!

MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Social Marketing Benchmark Report due out in January will no doubt be a valuable resource in shedding light on the future of of social marketing. I’m looking forward to reading it in its entirety.

From the chart published on their website and the downloadable executive summary, I was intrigued to read how even though blogging is described as a more effective social marketing tactic, it’s used by fewer organizations than other less effective tactics because of the “effort required.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this argument, and while some will defend the decision to using “fast and easy” 140 character tweets in place of taking the time to write a more substantial 350-500 word blog post, I think it’s time to demystify that blogging is too time consuming and effortful.

With proper planning blogging as part of your business’ social media strategy will become second nature and require less effort. What steps and processes will make for a successful blog strategy?

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If women are an important demographic for your business than it will be more important than ever in 2010 to create and maintain presences on blogs and social networking sites. The challenge of course, will not only to be discoverable in places where women search for information to support purchases, but to truly stand out.

In Helen Leggatt’s recent post, she wrote about the 2nd Annual Social Media Study from SheSpeaks which reports that women have truly embraced social networks.

Aliza Freud, Founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, states “…members were looking to social media to help them research, guide and facilitate every kind of transaction, from social exchanges to purchases.”

Over half (53%) of women say they have purchased a product because of a blog post and 43% as a result of information found via a social network. Both those figures are up from 27% last year.

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It’s that time of year again—holiday music on the radio, piped into stores. Decorations lining the shelves, and gift items flashed before you almost everywhere you look.

One of the things I love about this time of the year is the Best Lists–best books of 2009, best music, gift ideas, places to travel, places to eat, etc.

I’ve read a long list of wonderful books about social media, marketing, and all the advances in technology in 2009–and written a number of posts about them. As the year is rolling towards 2010 and into a new decade the pile of books waiting to be read has grown exponentially.

This week I’ve had the pleasure to read Eric Groves new book The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing. Eric is the Senior Vice President, Global Market Development at Constant Contact and writes with great knowledge and authority on the topic.

I was interested in the book for two main reasons:

1) With all the hubbub about Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc., Email Marketing has been losing the ranking it deserves. At times its become the forgotten stepchild of business marketing.

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