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Micro-messaging: A Possible Future
This article is a return to a topic, emerging on the internet, that has implications for how PR practitioners and marketers operate. That issue is the rise of a new internet addressing system called Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Few paid attention to IPv6 until the last internet addresses under the old system (IPv4) were handed out this year. Eventually, many of us will move to the new system and when we do, it will change the way we communicate. The new addressing system will restore the internet to the way it used to operate. Each device -- cell phone, tablet, desktop computer, laptop, etc. -- will have its own unique address shared with no other device on earth. This means we can start tracking devices and their internet addresses, associating them with people and beginning tailoring "personal" relations messages rather than "public" relations. Don't panic, though. The ability to do that is years away in the US and most countries, except for China.
Why read the article? It provides a view of a future that young practitioners and marketers might see by time they are in mid-career. The time to start understanding the implications is now.
