"The Daily Me" term became popular in 1995 when MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte described virtual daily newspaper customized for an individual's tastes. 15 years ago, the first attempts of Daily Me were rather crude and not very exciting. Today, the Daily Me is here. And here to stay.

Just have a look at the personalized newspaper that I created after attending a VRM/CRM conference. Paper.li is a service from a Swiss company called Small Rivers, which pulls in your Twitter feed and extracts any links shared by those you follow, displaying them in a newspaper-style format. It's extremely easy to create a customized newspaper and I've seen many people using this service so far. It's a pull approach to media, focusing on the demand side.

Another gorgeous example is Flipboard for the iPad. It displays links your Social Graph is sharing on Facebook and/or Twitter in a visually stunning way. Some believe Flipboard is the closest thing they've seen to the future of magazines. Compare the Flipboard experience to the typical Facebook experience and you know what Zuckerberg's team should be working on.

Above examples are the future of content - highly personalized, user-friendly, engaging, visually stunning and valuable to my life. The implications for the media business are clear: People will start viewing content on a very personal level. That makes it more important for brands to provide to users with what they want, without overwhelming them with information or push messages. It requires restraints from publishers and brands. Nobody wants to find duplicates or a bunch of retweets on their Flipboard app. Engagement with content becomes even more important. Clicks and pageviews completely meaningless.

Now, the $5 million questions is: Who will pay for it? Will we revive the micropayments idea and allow people to subscribe to the Sports Section of LA Times, the business section of NY Times and the technology news from Wired for a nominal fee? Or will we have to rely on advertising to support this model? What kind of advertising has a chance to make an impact (and be of value at the same time) in the app?

Sorry, I don't have the answer. Yet. But I know that advertisers should look at this space long and hard. Get familiar with it. And experiment. Sponsoring paper.li's from people that communicate your brand's value? Creating your own paper.li/Flipboard feed that includes links to content that communicates the value and purpose of your brand?

Do you have any other ideas?

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