After an explanation that it’s now possible to keep business and personal lives separate on Facebook, I flippantly suggested that the era of privacy is over anyway.

Many people under the age of, say, 25, seem comfortable sharing every moment – for better or worse –  with their extended network (often numbering in the thousands) of “friends.” And as that generation ages, our notion of privacy will become ever fainter and quainter. It will become a nostalgic memory, like retirement and puppet shows.

For example, I’ve just learned from CNET.com that the U.S. Department of Justice insists that e-mail messages should not enjoy the same protection as written correspondence or information about phone calls. The difference? Warrants are required when law enforcement officials want corporations to turn over your phone records or letters – but not necessarily e-mail. And DOJ wants to keep it that way.

Why? To make it easier to conduct fast criminal investigations of events that have either transpired our are about to transpire. I can see their point. I can also see why the main law covering such issues needs to be revisited; it was last updated in 1986, about 10 years before most people received their first e-mail.

But I hope the Justice Department softens its stance before privacy really is a thing of the past.

Rule #2:
It’s not about what you say; it’s about what they hear.

Rule #3:
Fast. Short. Meaningful.

Rule #4:
An incomplete solution now is better than a complete solution later.

Rule #5:
Instead of giving a lecture, tell a story.

Rule #6:
You can’t educate ‘em if you don’t entertain ‘em first.

Rule #7:
You can keep your audience busy with quotes and retweets. But to build an audience, you need to be original.

Rule #8:
Of course you’re there to sell. But your audience isn’t necessarily there to buy. Remember it and respect it.

Rule #9:
One sales pitch for every 20 pieces of non-selling content. Maximum. And that’s if your content is really good.

Rule #10:
More like H.L Mencken. Less like Billy Mays.

Rule #11:
You’re not a guru until OTHER people call you a guru; so don’t even bother trying to prime that pump.

Rule #12
Write like you talk, and talk well.

(More to come, or suggest your own)

“… In a world with many media choices, consumers are actively selecting what content is meaningful to them and circulating it consciously to people they think may be interested. They are deploying media content as gifts for their personal networks, as resources for ongoing conversations. Until marketers understand [this], they are doomed to insult and alienate the very people they are hoping to attract.”

Ignore that; that’s just headline-writing 101 – making the message immediately relevant. 2010 will inevitably bring more bad news for old-line media. But it will still be very much alive by the end of 2010.

But Broitman makes a great point, and I think he’s dead on.

His point is that online media will continue to supplant what he calls offline media (and what I, anachronistically perhaps, refer to as traditional media) at ever-increasing speed.

He gives two examples why (he claims there are three, but only two clearly jumped out at me from the column):

1. The skill and frequency with which offline media are using the web and social media – moving from passive entertainment/information to true interaction.
2. Applications being developed that shift the notion of information and search from keywords you type into a box on the web to something more contextual: information that comes to you because you ask a question out loud, or because you point a camera phone at an object.

There’s another irony; while media is becoming more active, search is becoming more passive. When selling print advertising, I made the point that consumers use print and online differently. Print was for grazing – looking for things you didn’t know to think about; online was for finding information you knew you wanted. Those purposes are merging. If Marshall McLuhan were still around, he’d have to rewrite Understanding the Media as TV becomes “hot” and Google becomes “cool.”

Too often, media allow themselves to be steered by past experience – their own and that of consumers.

For instance, all sorts of new studies proclaim to know whether people will pay for online content. How do they know? They ask.

But they ask things like: “Would you pay for this newspaper online.” The answer to that isn’t helpful; a newspaper isn’t built for online consumption – and the prospect of reading it online is unappealing. So people will say no.

People who answer such surveys haven’t generally put thought into what they would pay for online. They’ll just know it when they see it. Which means that it’s the job of the media to figure out its own future; the audience isn’t going to be much help.

So the real point that I take from Broitman’s column is one that’s essentially unspoken: offline media will continue to decline because of the relentless growth in online offerings that will be worthy buying.

The unresolved question is how many of these offerings will be created by startups vs. the existing “offline” media.