2000 to 2009: The Rise of Social Networks and Economic Crises - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 289

Internet Marketing Association (IMA)
The IMA is not a corporation per se but rather a professional association. It is in-
cluded in this topic for several reasons. One is that it is large and important, with
more than 750,000 members. The other is that it illustrates that when technologies
such as the internet and the World Wide Web become pervasive and important,
people need to consider ethics and professional behavior. The third is that the in-
ternet and the World Wide Web have risen to become key marketing tools in the
modern era. In fact, one of the reasons why newspapers are losing money is be-
cause much of the corporate money used for marketing campaigns has switched
from newspaper ads to web marketing.
The IMA was started in 2000 in San Clemente, California, by Sinan Kanatsiz.
Some funding was acquired from various sponsors such as Google, Microsoft,
Facebook, YouTube, and quite a few more. Surprisingly, there are no fees or dues
for members, which may be one reason why membership is so large.
The IMA features training, certification of internet marketing personnel, and a
number of conferences and/or trade shows. It also issues annual awards called In-
ternet Impact Awards. It provides conferences for clients such as Apple and also
on its own behalf. Some of these conferences are large, with hundreds of parti-
cipants.
The IMA is one of many professional associations that have surfaced to support
computers, software, the internet, and the World Wide Web. Others in this space
include the IEEE Computer Society, the Association of Computing Machinery
(ACM), the Association of Information Processing Professionals (AIPP), the So-
ciety for Information Management (SIM), the Association for Women in Comput-
ing, the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and hundreds more in many
countries.
Some of these groups are international, some national, and many, such as the
Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN), are regional or support person-
nel in specific cities. Some are based on a single manufacturer or vendor, such as
the IBM SHARE group that represents a majority of IBM computer and software
customers. The IMA is included here as one example of a large class of social and
professional organizations that have sprung up since computers and software be-
came global corporate and business tools.