Few people these days mention IPv6, the Internet Protocol standard that significantly expands the number of available IP addresses – up to about 3.4×1038 of them (that’s a lot). One of the reasons IPv6 came about was smart people realized we were going to get to a place where every electronic device was connected to the Internet. For that to happen, the infrastructure of the Internet had to support an extreme number of connections. That couldn’t happen with IPv4 but is more likely with IPv6. Why is this important? It gets exactly to HP’s point in buying Palm and WebOS.

HP, I think, and in spite of what they say now, wants their entire non-PC product line (and perhaps later, even that) to run WebOS. Every calculator, every printer, every smartphone, every scanner, every monitor, every tablet Slate style device, every video conference product – it will all run WebOS, their own connected-to-the-web, no-need-to-license-it operating system.

It’s clear that the benefits for HP are huge. I already pointed out that there’s no need to license it, so that frees them up to do with the OS as they please. Additionally, with one OS running all of its products, they achieve scale and presence. Sure, developers aren’t flocking to WebOS right now, but they might if they know it’s running on almost everything HP makes – from consumer products up to enterprise solutions. In addition to all of that, they get the peace of mind that comes with having a common platform on which to begin their world domination. It’s the very scenario for which IPv6 was built and HP is going to be there first thanks to this acquisition.

I’m open to being wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.

The reality we as Americans have never paid for news. It may seem as though we have. In reality, we’ve been paying for the paper on which the news was printed and by which it was delivered to us. Think about it… News came out today of the pilot from the USS Alabama, Richard Phillips, being rescued from hostages. Once you’ve heard that three pirates were killed, one was arrested and the pilot is safe, what else do you need to know? Nothing – with the exception of a small few of us. Your friend who happened to catch the news elsewhere can give you those details. The same can’t be said for music.

Can you imagine someone telling you how the latest Coldplay song sounds? “Well, this guy is singing in a pseudo-melodic tenor over a repetitive bed while a mild drum plays in the background. The song goes for 3 minutes and 23 seconds.” I don’t do Coldplay justice – nor would the average person. A similarly poor telling of a movie would occur. We have to pay to get the full impact of that content.

What makes news valuable is its perspective. Fox News does so well because its stories are so obviously unfair and unbalanced. In this age where all news content is expected to be free, the winner of the news wars will be those who identify their voice and allow each story to be told in that voice – in a way that makes it more and more challenging to repeat the story without losing some meaning. If news sites want people to pay for content, they’re going to have to become more like the music and movie business. Make the stories an experience that cannot be easily retold and people will pay. It’s what National Public Radio (NPR) and it’s huge part of what makes people so willing to contribute to their local public radio station. The vast new media resources available make such stories more feasible than ever. Now it’s time for old media world to start doing some out-of-the-box new media thinking. If they don’t, it will certainly be easy to tell their story “They died off like the dinosaurs they were.”

Running campaigns where your customers buys $1,000,000 widgets offline rather than $100 cogs by clicking the “Buy Now” button is a different world. B2B marketers have to think differently and, once you get online, and take away the face-to-face sales effort which helps make B2B companies so successful, it can be a challenge. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the web sites of most B2B enterprises (e.g. chemical companies, shippers, device makers, etc). Their sites look like the were built in 2000 with little updating since. There’s a reason for that. They don’t believe in the power of the web.

In our new Marketnology^SM Insights whitepaper, we try to help them out. It’s a lot easier to take action when you have an idea about the steps you can take to implement a plan. The whitepaper, B2B Marketer’s Guide to Getting the Most from Your Web Presence details for B2B marketers a few technologies that they need to be paying attention to and shares a list of top vendors with products in each category. Among the technologies included are Analytics, SEO, Targeted Email, Marketing Automation, Video and Mobile.

Each of them has a lot of value for B2B marketers. Together, they offer marketers a powerful set of tools for redefining themselves online — something B2B marketers have to start doing if they want to find more success online.

Visit the Actuan web site to learn more about Actuan.