Our next mobile guest blog is by Tom Wilde, CEO of Ramp. Tom writes a great post that discusses the second screen and the impact it is having on television and in turn marketing and advertising. If you are interested in being a guest blogger please contact me at taylor [at] mitx [dot] org.

Tom Wilde is a widely recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising, and prior to becoming RAMP’s CEO has held numerous leadership roles in the field including SVP/GM of the Consumer Division at domain portfolio company NameMedia, senior vice president and general manager of MIVA Inc.’s North American division, responsible for both MIVA’s U.S. online advertising network as well as the company’s consumer business, and senior operating roles managing Terra Lycos’ global search & publishing divisions. Tom has also served on the IAB Search Engine Committee and holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Twitter Handle: @RAMPinc

At the events RAMP has been attending this year, there has been a constant buzz around the term “second screen”. Second screen refers to the use of another device while watching television. It seems when we are watching TV, we also want to use our smartphones, laptops or tablets to use social media to react to what we’re watching, surf the web for related – and unrelated – topics, check email, and make purchases. As television viewers’ attention is pulled away from the first screen to the second screen in this age of multitasking, it follows that advertisers and marketers would want to use the second screen as a promotional tool. Second screen provides marketers a gateway to transform their advertising from interruption-driven to a contextually-relevant, engaging return on investment. Here is how second screen is providing value to advertisers:

This is the time of year when we reflect on the past, and look to the future. Through the end of January 2013 (2013!) we'll be sharing guest blog posts our the annual Predictions & Reflections series. We asked some of our smartest guest writers to reflect on the past year and look to the upcoming year. This post is by Matt Jacobs. As a Director on the Connections Planning team at AMP Agency, Matt spearheads cross-channel strategy development and ideation to create integrated marketing solutions for a range of Fortune 500 brands. Matt has broad marketing experience spanning roles in business development, planning and program execution for clients such as John Hancock, Staples, TJX, Hasbro and the Food Bank For New York City.

Let me start with a confession: I’m a marketing nerd. As others sat around on New Year’s Eve discussing their resolutions and predicting the next Mayan-sized apocalyptic occurrence, I eagerly rattled off proof points for 2012 being the “Year of Social.”And while I admit that I’ll probably make the same case for 2013 in twelve months time (and I probably could have made an equally impassioned “Year of Mobile” argument), 2012 was a pretty epic year for social media.

Cue the short end-of-year social media montage: Facebook hit a billion monthly users in September; Pinterest and Instagram joined the big leagues; MySpace started its latest comeback attempt; World records were set on Twitter during the Olympics only to be trumped by the Presidential Elections; Gangnam Style happened.

This is the time of year when we reflect on the past, and look to the future. Through the end of January 2013 (2013!) we'll be sharing guest blog posts our the annual Predictions & Reflections series. We asked some of our smartest guest writers to reflect on the past year and look to the upcoming year. This post is by Brent Turner. Brent, in his roles as chief digital officer and senior strategic advisor, leads the teams behind MIT’s largest media properties, including MIT Technology Review, MIT Enterprise Forum, MIT.edu, MIT News, MIT Video and more. Connect with Brent on his site, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

We're all about big data right now. We asked a group of exceptional data experts to enlighten us. They answered this tough question: “How will the recent explosion of big data affect marketing & advertising innovation and productivity in the future?” This post is by Chris Emme. Chris is Vice President, East Region for RadiumOne, an innovative Dynamic Audience Platform (DAP) that harnesses social interaction data through its own first party products and delivers audience scale for today's Intelligent Web. Chris works with senior leaders at agencies and brands to bring innovative ad solution opportunities for their digital marketing objectives. Chris has worked with leading brands and digital ad solution teams for over 14 years. Prior to joining RadiumOne, Chris worked with some of most well known brands while heading up teams at Microsoft, Excite@Home and most recently at Yahoo! He is an avid tri-athlete and new father to his son, Tyler. Find him on Twitter at @chrisemme.

FutureM presenting sponsor Google (you may have heard of them) works with the very amazing Citizen Schools. We love their work with middle school students, and we're sharing it with you! We hope you find it as inspiring as we do. The original post can be found here.

FutureM, the weeklong event experience on the future of Marketing, today announced eleven new session topics and meet-up leaders focused on digital media, mobile and e-commerce for its national fall event. Today’s session leaders include:

FutureM, a weeklong event experience on the future of Marketing, today unveiled its 2012 schedule of sessions, with more sessions and sponsors being added on a daily basis. Participating companies and attendees, including SCVNGR, Google, CampusLIVE, Hubspot, etc., will facilitate discussions and discovery about the future of Marketing, including:

On Wednesday June 6th, BIMA (a MITX Subsidiary) hosted an event recapping the digital highlights froms the Upfronts.   Moderator Armin Molavi, SVP of Strategic Planning at Havas Media, shares his, and his colleagues, POV on the Upfronts below.

As the internet continues to evolve, advertising opportunities will quickly follow; and now we are reaching a new plateau in online marketing — Digital Video. This coming of age has been brought about by significant leaps in the proliferation of devices, the leaps in bandwidth and now the creation of Original Programming to air on these platforms. To support this new era, each of the major digital portals held what some viewed as very traditional upfronts, last month in NYC, mimicking what the TV networks have been doing for years. The question is: will these upfront meetings have the same impact on the market and advertiser dollars as the television upfronts have traditionally had?

Industry news! And member news! We love sharing!

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Corey McPherson Nash Selected to Develop Ad Campaign for Atlantic Broadband
Fresh Tilled Soil Redesigns Site for Hot Startup GymPact
Nathaniel Borenstein of Mimecast on How Spam and the Cloud Can Save the Future of Email
Fiksu Expands with Northampton Office

Last week at BIMA's mobile event, a panel of experts spoke to an overflowing room at Hill Holliday. The panel included Trevor Hamilton - Director, Mobile Solutions, Brands & Agencies, Velti; Gene Keenan - VP, Mobile Services, Isobar; Ali Merlino -  Director of Sales, Northeast, Millennial Media; Johnny Won - Interactive Strategist, Hill Holliday; and Elizabeth Zalman -  Co-Founder, Media Armor.