Yahoo's Roger Park waxed enthusiastic over Piper Jaffray's phone book-sized report on the Internet, how it has become the mainstream medium for information, and why we need a new word to talk about it.

Someone in Piper Jaffray's research department thought coining a new phrase would be a good thing to drop into the 425-page report that Park swears he's mostly ready. Here's how Park explained why 'communitainment' has become immediately relevant:

The Internet, says the report, has become a principal medium for community, communication and entertainment. This new activity, communitainment, is taking time away from other, more traditional types of content consumption on the Internet. Piper Jaffray names Yahoo! Answers as an example of communitainment.

Yahoo is as excited about communitainment as Jason Lee Miller and Joe Lewis were to find out clerisy was the Word of the Day. For Yahoo, communitainment gives the Internet affirmation as a medium, and that is very important:

And that’s good news for you, dear Yahoo! Search Marketing advertiser. Instead of looking for customers - which is what advertisers and publishers of the past had to do - now they come and find you.

Search is the second most commonly used application on the Web, with nearly 600 million searches daily. Today, search marketing is a $15.8 billion annual global industry, and it is expected to grow to $44.5 billion annually in the next five years.

Search, therefore, becomes one of the leading actions for communitainment. The analysis found that there are more than 550 million searches performed daily on the Web from all over the world, and that get this—35 percent of all Internet searches are commercial in nature.

A soon-to-retire search engine market researcher added his explanation of who has the power in communitainment:

"The historically passive consumer is changing rapidly, not only becoming more informed and confident about purchase decisions, but also increasingly taking control of the consumption of information and content that used to be distributed by networks, studios, publishers and retailers," says Safa Rashtchy, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray. "We believe this will cause a significant rise in prominence of the Internet as a major content consumption and marketing medium."

It's all about the people who validated the Internet as a medium. Since they are actively involved in the medium, Park's post serves as a reminded to participate as well. Ramp up those efforts with search marketing, and anyone who's diligent and fortunate enough can join the SEM clerisy too.

Communitainment, Internet, Search Marketing