CardMarketing 2.0

We've spoken once or twice before about how consumerdom, revolutionized by the second generation internet, is rapidly fragmenting into gazillions of micro communities and niches, whose members will no longer tolerate products or services produced for a mass audience (perish the thought).

Well, the plans of NYC-based online media company, Next New Networks, to build internet-based, UGC-driven "micro television networks" – for targeting niche communities – is yet more confirmation of this trend, and another heads-up for issuers who dare to ignore it.

For example, if you just love comic book news and culture (you freak), PulpSecret will be worth a visit; Channel Frederator, meanwhile, is for people who never grew out of cartoons. Did I say people? I meant losers.

But seriously, whatever the niche, however bizarre and full of misfits it may be, addressing it and answering its needs is the challenge of marketing in a society of mass fragmentation. The money, the real money, is in the tail, and you, as card issuers dammit, need to get down it.

So folks, what's your strategy for targeting niches? If you haven't got one, best get moving...