Was 2009 a good year for marketing communications?

As the last year in the first decade of 21st century, 2009 was certainly a year of flux. We saw lots of changes in media. Many magazines were shuttered, and some newspapers became online only.  The Internet, in the Web 2.0 format was king. Twitter flourished, as did Facebook. Blogs continued to pop up everywhere.  All the mainstream newscasts routinely place more information, video, interviews  online. The divide between haves and have-nots is certainly growing.

Some trends that I personally disliked:

• The rise of personal branding to the level of ridiculous self-promotion.
• The failure of old guard public relations/advertising practitioners to embrace new media
• The idea that new media/social networks are THE solution (they are not)
• Social media “experts” (having a Twitter account and a blog does not make anyone an expert)
• Endless self-promotion on multiple platforms of social media
• Linking every Tweet to Facebook and LinkedIn and everything in between
• Feeling the need to tweet everything, have hashtags for everything and  “follow Friday”
• Rise in sexist images in advertising
• Decline in thoughtful public relations campaigns
• Decline in traditional media, especially print journalism
• Endless hype/hysteria about the supposed big story of the minute (Tiger Woods, Octomom, Balloon Boy, etc.)

But on the bright side

• Social media has presented great opportunities for small businesses
• The new PBS NewsHour
• Increased desire for measurement and return on investment
• Twitter, in spite of the above problems, has allowed for new relationships and allegiances, not to mention new parlance (tweetup, tweetsgiving, etc)
• Acceptance of blogs as legitimate journalistic outlets
• Citizen journalism and subsequent empowerment

What are your best/worst for the year?