Yet online advertising spend in the UK is on the up.

But, advertising itself looks to be pretty doomed these days. So doomed that it’s even starting to point fun at itself.

And over half of social media campaigns implemented by Fortune 1000 companies will fail.

Press releases are starting to feel even more out of place in today’s world of real people and resistance to corporate speak. So much so, the industry is beginning to parody itself and the language we use.

Yet the web is growing all the time and brands want to be a part of it. So what do they do?

1. Make sure that any social media/digital campaign it implements matches the needs of its community as well as itself.

2. Don’t fall into the trap of letting perceptions of short term ‘results’ override longer term, more meaningful ROI from a whole load of effort.

3. Keep focused on innovation and making its products/services better, in all respects (eg customer service).

Just a quick thought as all the dots begin to join up in my mind. Anything to add?

Jason Calcanis has dropped a clanger with his predictions that “50-80% of the venture-backed startups currently operating will shut down or go on life-support (i.e. 3-4 folks working on them) within the next 18 months” and to make matters worse – there’s a big ‘WTF’ resounding around the blogosphere as Silicon Alley Insider and others pulled their posts in which the contents of the original Calcanis email containing the predictions were published.

Perhaps everyone quickly agreed that predicting that 80% of the current start-up community will ‘shut down or go on life support’ was a bit much and not the most optimistic outlook for the industry, by the industry itself?

Here’s Loic wading in, on Seesmic, naturally. . .

[via Engadget so you;ve probably already seen it – and actually originally a guy at Poke called Will)

Nice one Mike. I encourage anyone in the business to read carefully as it applies not just to TCUK but any online media.

[Pic of Mike asking Ev from Twitter a question at Le Web 3 with Loic Le Meur on stage. Everyone looks a bit worried - can't remember what the question was but I'm sure there's a funny caption in here somewhere about revenue models or scale or something]

Looks like it’s part of the National Year of Reading 2008 (me neither) and is tied into Piczo where you can get more of an insight into da yoof – including this little gem “i ♥ anne frank bookz. i hav been twoo the anne frankk house && it wozz rlly interesting ”

Most loved reads
1 Heat magazine
2 Bliss magazine; online song lyrics
3 Online computer game cheats
4 My own blog or fan fiction
5 The Harry Potter series
6 Anne Frank’s diary
7 Film scripts
8 Books by Anthony Horowitz
9 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis
10 BBC Online; the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books by Louise Rennison

Most loathed reads
1 Homework
2 Shakespeare
3 Books of over 100 pages
4 Magazine articles about skinny celebrities
5 Books assigned by school/teachers
6 Encyclopedias and dictionaries
7 The Beano
8 Music (scores); the Harry Potter series; maps/directions
9 Facebook
10 Financial Times; Anything in another language

[Via Guardian]

Jason Calcanis is interviewed in the piece and besides calling himself a “nerd who builds websites” he predicts that “The worst moment in almost everybody’s life is going to be captured on film”.

That’s lifecasting for you.

“Even given meteoric online readership trends, January’s results from the ABCe are remarkable. The Mail Online’s unique user numbers increased 165% year on year to 17,903,172. In the same period, Telegraph.co.uk increased 65% to 12,348,706; Sun Online grew to 13,322,535, up 40% from January 2007, and Times Online increased 39% to 15,087,130. Guardian.co.uk remained the highest traffic website with 19,708,711, a rise of 26% year on year”

Ged tagged me over Christmas to help fuel the “My Week In Media” meme that came off the back of this and this. Back then I was sat on a sofa in Northumbria with a patchy broadband connection so I decided to leave a comment directly over at Ged’s, which has since randomly gone AWOL. Now the meme is growing (full list here), I feel obliged to take part, even though as I haven’t been at home or work over the past week so this is a weird twisted version of what would normally be my week in media.

1) What I’ve read
Daily Mail, every single day. I’ve been staying at my parents house and yes I do try telling them.
News of the World, back to front a few times. Hmm.
Hello! magazine. Jesus Christ there are some messed up things to be seen in there. Jordan, Andre and the kids dressed as a Nativity scene in particular.
Guardian, bits of.
Scotts of Stow catalogue, a few times.
Maplin catalogue, as above. They have inverters for about £30 so you can plug 240v mains into your car. I’m getting one.
Microtrends, like loads of other people I bet I got this as a present. I’ve read the intro, the first few microtrends and skipped to Social Geek.
Stuff on my Cat, the book. Was working with Yahoo! a couple of years ago when the site this book is based on was nominated with a Finds of the Year award. The Blue Cross charity wrote to us to complain. The book is still funny mind.
Instruction manuals, lot of. I got loads of amazing presents for Christmas, including a Canon 400D and Guitar Hero for the Wii. As Hugh would say, rock on!
Online I haven’t been as active, with next to no 3G where I was and that patchy broadband connection to cope with. When I did get online I check my feeds in Google Reader and scan Twitter/Techmeme mainly. For an instant hit or just to find something nice and interesting, I check out popurls. Usually I’ll be all over stuff, but in the past week I haven’t.

2) What I’ve watched
As people have pointed out, Christmas TV was fairly cack, so I’ve mainly watched movies and the odd bit of TV.
Transformers, a few times.
Simpsons movie, just the once. Good but is just like one big episode though don’t know what else I was expecting.
Most Haunted, Series 8. I can’t help it. I like it and got the box set.
Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Can’t decide if Simon is a cock or not.
Local news in Northumbria. Genius, nice bit of Look North.

3) What I’ve listened to
Pandora, lots of.
Linus Loves, Stage Invader.
Justice, Cross.
Radio 1 in the car.
Radio 4 at my parents house.
Lots of dog barking.
Kids talking on their own language (Favourite is that “Rips” = Father Christmas)

Now, I’m going to try and get the digital peeps to take part so I tag Iain, Yacco, Flo, Faris and Amelia who I don’t think have taken part yet.