Wonder Web

Can you define convergence? It sounds like one of those vague buzzwords businesspeople like to use.

But it does mean something — that devices and platforms are coming together at increasing speed. Firms unable to integrate online sales sites and mobile marketing with their catalogs and stores will be bringing up the rear in both visibility and sales.

That's not likely to happen to Ikea. The home furnishings retailer used its fall 2008 print catalog to get recipients to text to a short code, answer some very easy questions about three items buried in the book and enter to win a sweepstakes. That showed a will to create new touchpoints with committed customers.

This trend will only accelerate as more users access the Web over mobile phones (thank you, Steve Jobs and all those iPhone 3G clones to come). Nielsen Mobile found in July that 16% of U.S. mobile users went to the Web over their phones.

But think bigger than just the phone. Researcher TNS recently reported that online TV viewership has doubled in the last two years, with nearly a fifth of U.S. households watching shows on the Web.

Meanwhile, broadband-enabled TV sets are penetrating the market, reducing the steps between seeing an ad and answering its call to action.

TiVo and Amazon.com are testing a service that will let users buy the books and music they see touted on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” or “Late Night With David Letterman.” If that tech gets into more set-top boxes it'll revolutionize both the infomercial and product placement.

Here's another buzzword: community. For marketers, it means that users which are linked by shared interests and concerns wield exponential power.

How can you tap into that? By adding forums, product reviews, comment areas and other interactive features to a Web site. Online communities operated by Dell and JetBlue took some of the sting out of performance failures by those brands.

And anyone tempted to dismiss online grouping as a teenage tic should think again: A study by NPD Group last month showed that 57% of all Web users visited a social network site in the previous three months — and that includes 61% of the boomers (ages 44 to 61).

Finally there's the old standby conversation. It'll be used even more as groups gather online and customers move from desktops and laptops to handhelds and TVs.

What's it mean to you? That you'll have to listen to consumers' problems and reach them with the exact information they need — when they want it. Brands like Dell, H&R Block and Carnival Cruise Lines are monitoring tweets on the microblog platform Twitter to find customers in need of help and offer it instantly.