Digital Marketing's footprint, is bounded by analog and digital devices. Another way to describe Digital Marketing is to talk about the "communication of commercial messages" within the Networked Society. Both devices and networks are components that enable Digital Marketing because they transmit, store and display analog and digital information.

The process of converting currently installed analog devices to digital networks and network-aware devices, involves the up-grade or replacement of Personal Computers, PDA's, Telephones, Television sets, and Radios. It is probable that this conversion will eventually encompass GPS information, inventory items, household appliances and environmental wireless services in homes, cars and offices.

Although it is a horizon issue, the concept of ubiquitous computers - computers embedded in the environment - becomes more of a reality with each cycle of Moore's Law. The law says that component density doubles every 18 months. Skeptics argue that we have reached the practical limits of component density, yet every time that argument reaches a crescendo, the sciences behind chip fabrication have broken through the limitations.

Moore's Law also means that for a given component density, prices fall at nearly the same rate as density increases. It also means that for a given component density, the size diminishes at nearly the same rate because reduced size has been a constant source for increasing chip performance; half the size translates into double the speed.

In practical terms, this means chips are getting cheaper and smaller. Just how this will play out is unclear. The more flamboyant among us suggest that network-aware components will get so small that they will be painted on walls and programmed to mimic a display or any other function. Is this far fetched?

The reason for talking about Moore's Law is that no matter how it plays out, it will dramatically effect the spread of network-aware devices and networks. Each time prices drop, connectivity comes within the economic range of ever larger segments of the world's population. Progress in chip fabrication almost always translates into enlarging the market for chips.

To get an idea of how far "going digital" has progressed, you could look at figures for the amount of information stored on Internet (170 terabytes) or the number of more defined segments like text messages transmitted annually (288 billion) or the volume of email (400,000 terabytes). The problem is that most of us have difficulty thinking in terabytes.

A more comprehensible measurement is contained in a recent speech made by the CEO of Nokia on December 9, 2003. He said, "Today, over 1.2 billion people worldwide have access to data, voice and personal communications" in his speech to the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, Switzerland.

Most estimates from Jupiter Research and other industry analysts, project that by the end of this decade (3 of Moore's Law cycles), the number of Internet connected people will increase to over 2 billion, or a third of the world's population. Digital Marketing is big and growing rapidly.