Please, please download my whitepaper!

Back in the days we discussed a lot about the difference between an “industry” and “technology” and what the internet is.

At the beginning the web really was just a technology but today we all know it’s an industry.

The proof is not Uber but “Trend-Circles”.

The fashion industry is a great example for such Trend-Circles. As 17 years old teenager every trend seems to be super new – but your parents keep telling you they used to wear the same style 20 years ago.
It is the same with the music industry as well. Every genre comes (again) and goes (again).
The funny thing about trends is if we look back two or three years we say:

How could anybody wear this?

Or how could anybody listen to this music?

A few years ago online ads and newsletters were the big thing, later it was all about blogs. With the rise of Social Media we told every CEO to use Twitter, then we started to calculate “likes” and soon later everybody tried to create a “viral” Youtube video using Mentos and Coke.

To be honest: I loved to see and discuss all those trends!
(BTW: my first job was as creating a MySpace campaign for Nokia).

Today it is all about whitepapers aka inboud marketing aka content marketing aka lead generation – a trend based on the idea to “download a PDF” (and print it?).

Even cloudservice companies are asking me to download and “save” something locally.

It is not a bad thing; it’s a trend like bell-bottoms – and you can follow the trend, love the trend, hate the trend, buy the trend.. or sell the trend. But the coolest is to create a new one – and the worst is to follow just because the others do.

Need a whitepaper?