Following web trends is important for anyone these days, not only people who work in the Internet industry. Keeping your finder on the pulse is what can end up saving you a lot of time and money.
CNN announced a list of web trends to watch in 2010:
- Real-time ramps up – Twitter and Facebook are the two big ones that come to mind, both of which have allowed for easy real-time communication amongst people. These trend setters will create a bridge for thousands of other real-time developments.
- Location, location, location – I’ve noticed, specifically, with the iPhone that a large number of applications are requiring a persons location, and with Google Maps and Bing Maps developing drastically, a persons location is becoming more and more important. I guess it’s a global village afterall.
- Augmented reality – AR involves overlaying data on your environment; imagine walking around a city and seeing it come to life with reviews of the restaurants you walk past and Wikipedia entries about the sights you see.
- Content ‘curation’ – This refers to the alignment of information to avoid constant information overload by the all data being pushed into the Internet.
- Cloud computing – Cloud computing is the process of storing information on servers around the world, allowing for your information to be accessed from anywhere, rather than just your own machine.
- Internet TV and movies – I think most people are aware that Internet connections are getting better and the ability to stream high quality video footage over the Internet is already in place. Soon, we’ll be throwing away our DSTV cards and engaging in TV Guides over the Internet.
- Convergence conundrum – The outlook for devices in 2010 appears somewhat contradictory: While the convergence trend continues apace and many of our gadgets are folded into the smartphones we carry around every day, we’re seeing a converse trend in which task-specific devices gain popularity.
- Social gaming – Gaming online has always been popular, but now games, which exist purely on the Internet are starting to evolve. These games offer their own currencies and own virtual worlds.
- Mobile payments – We saw just the other day that mobile devices are going to be popular when it comes to accepting payments or making payments. This is inevitable.
- Fame abundance, privacy scarcity – With the likes of social media, bloggers, twitter users and the likes have gained huge fame from their activities. As social media evolves, so will the fame of the undiscovered talented person.
The explanations for these trends are just my view, you can read about Pete Cashmore’s, founder and CEO of Mashable, over here.
If you found this interesting, you might want to read my article on Most popular search terms in South Africa.
y intresting! One item here I have big issues with is the “cloud computing”. I am not very keen on storing information online so I can access it from a different places at a later stage. Call me paranoid, but the security risk is so much higher.
I must admit, the concept of having all your information online is quite scary, especially in a country like South Africa, which’s Internet is controlled by Telkom as a monopoly. I have a huge amount of information online, but the most important stuff is in this head of mine!