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So, this week it emerges that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo and Google’s share price (independently) dropped 9% (FT). We may have a scrap on our hands for online domination. But, the key point here is the rise of the user - yes that’s you…

Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale talked about the fall and rise of social tribes nearly ten years ago in Funky Business. Today, we are obsessed with social networking - the Internet makes this very easy. We connect to people we want to, and talk about things we want to discuss, directly - no intermediaries and no matter how obscure the topic.

For instance, I want to buy a new TV this weekend. I went to the shop and got bombarded. So, I went online and read a number of reviews. Even the users reviews were voted on by other users so I could filter those out.

Around the same time business was getting funky, Seth Godin was talking about Permission marketing: The fact that we don’t actually want to be marketed to arbitrarily - and how we won’t have to as technology will enable personalised communication.

This trio of Nostradamuses (or should that be Nostradami>) allowed smart marketers to embrace these concepts. The new marketers have realised if they use their old techniques they will get in the way of the social conversation, so, they seed rather than hunt.

Consumers have switched off from the in-your-face adverts that dominated our childhood. So, came the emergence of SPAM and ever more extreme interruption adverts and banner ads, which pushes us even further away.

Google addressed this with Adwords, but even that is getting used lazily. It’s still a great product and their success has been in a user-centric approach, working towards quality of results - yes, even paid adverts are quality indexed.

Facebook, the young upstart, has changed the game even further. The way we will interact with technology is getting even more personalised.

Marketers are losing control and… it’s your fault. Well done I say.

Thanks for the FT heads up Lorraine. There is also an interesting piece in today’s Sunday Times: Bill Gates on how Yahoo takeover will challenge Google