How have businesses been changed by the internet and what does the future of online marketing look like?

The internet has dramatically increased the playing field for all businesses. 

How dramatic has this increase been and what its capabilities?

It all depends on what online tools businesses and marketers have at their disposal, in order to optimize their operations. 

There are certainly an extensive amount of tools available on the internet. Some of the most powerful and useful tools for marketers have been those falling under the category of social networking technologies. 

Social networking sites have not only done the job of changing the way the consumers behave, but they have also become a powerful tool in providing insight to marketers on consumers interests, needs, behaviours, locations, family life, future projections, etc. Social networking sites grant marketers almost instant access to models of consumer social behaviour. The websites have done the job of mapping out social interactions and making them readily available through online portals. The information retrieved by observing the patterns and interactions of consumers online is paramount to marketers. What better source of information on consumer behaviour existed prior to the internet? None. 

Not only are online portals a massive source of data and knowledge for marketers, they are also a machine enabling, and persuading consumers to de-privatize their lives. The de-privatization of our lives can be seen as a worldwide cultural shift in thought and behaviour. The cultural shift has occurred worldwide as the internet exists online and in no actual physical space; having the power to seamlessly cross through continents and countries. The internet is connecting us all and is connecting marketers and businesses to us as well. 

With all of the readily available information pooling around the internet, marketers have had the opportunity to strategically shift their business models and create new ones. New business models are able to exist as marketers are able to target small groups of consumers and target them intimately. With the de-privatization of our lives, consumers are sharing an abundant amount of information online, giving marketers the chance to classify individuals into much smaller groups than they have ever been able to before, leaving little room for a mismatch between the product targeted to the consumer and the consumer's need. 

This all gives way to an increased efficiency in marketing and the customization of business models based on the needs of the consumer. This is what I believe is the future of online marketing. Customized, granular business models, that are able to cater intimately to the needs of the consumer, not only by retrieval of instantly up-to-date: profile data, status updates, posts, etc., but by generation of predictive models based on the current consumer database available on the internet.