(I am reposting this from my main blog since it is relevant to Microsoft technologies)

While there’s an endless supply of technologies that can be used to engage and entertain your target audience with your online marketing, there are a few that are more important than others. Here are a few that I suggest today’s modern marketers should understand :

1. Social media plug-ins, such as leveraging Facebook's social graph or Windows Live Messenger controls. 
2. Cloud technologies so your site can scale if/when it gets popular and so you don’t have to manage the server infrastructure on your own. See Windows Azure.
3. Web technologies so you can build engaging sites and services. See HTML5, CSS3 and Silverlight
4. Mapping technologies to either make it easy for people to find you or to give a goe/physical overview to whatever you’re doing. See as the Bing Maps APIs (cool interactive SDK)
5. Mobile application technologies, such as those for the Windows Phone and iPhone.

What technologies do you suggest today’s marketers need to understand?