Entries Tagged 'predictions' ↓

Some people say that the bubble’s going to take a downturn in the next year or two – that huge numbers of copycat startups are going to shut down, people are going to be out of work and Web 2.0 cheerleaders are going to eat their (our) words.

While startup churn is inevitable in any industry (thank goodness we’re not restaurant founders!) I think this forecast is selling the future short. There are some big trends I’m really excited about for the web in 2008. Whatever happens to the economy, there’s at least a whole lot of innovation to be inspired by right now. Ultimately, I think that will end up brightening the picture for all of us around the world.

Let’s Build Some Stuff

For each of the 5 big topical trends described below, I’ve assembled some resources I think will be useful for anyone who wants to keep up with cutting edge developments in these fields in the next year.

These resources include:

* An OPML file of top blogs on each subject. This is a bundle of feeds you can import into your reader.
* A filtered RSS feed of just the most popular items regarding each topic (using AideRSS). Remember, whenever you subscribe to new RSS feeds – some of the magic won’t be visible until you mark all the initial items as read and new ones come in again.
* A Custom Search Engine that you can bookmark and use to search inside the top news and reference sites regarding each topic.

If you’d like to recommend any additional feeds or sites to add to these resources just let me know and I’ll check them out. Please do, in fact. I hardly have the energy to make these lists exhaustive by myself. That’s kind of the point of this whole web endeavor, isn’t it?

All of these resources are dynamic; sites added at a later date will be automatically delivered to everyone who subscribes to these OPML files today.

So let’s get to some trends that are shaping up to make a big impact on 2008…

Open Data

Data silos and walled gardens are a huge loss of opportunity and more people are figuring that out every day. The developments in this direction seen just in the last half of 2007 are too numerous to list here but some of the subthemes include the following.

• Data portability – taking your archives and friends from one site to another.
• The portable identity of OpenID
• The Google-led OpenSocial
• Google’s Android mobile OS
• The “by hell or high water” rise of data-centric startups
• The personal data aggregation and publishing tools called Lifestreaming apps like Tumblr, named one of Time’s Top 50 Websites of the Year, or the bleeding edge Onaswarm, Lifestrea.ms and Soup.
• The burgeoning Attention standard APML and various other efforts you can learn more about at sites like DataPortability.org.

Open Data Resources:
*RWW Open Data Feed Favorites OPML file (save link)
*RWW Open Data Feeds – Best of Feed (copy and paste to your reader)
*Preview the above feeds before subscribing (pop-up window)
*RWW Open Data Sites Search (Visit and Bookmark)

Recommendation

As is aptly demonstrated from the category above, the future is likely to be even more swamped in data, social and content options than the web is today. From Google Reader’s recent incorporation of both feed recommendations and shared items in Reader from your contacts in GMail to the ascendancy of services like Last.fm, Pandora and StumbleUpon – recommendation is beginning to make a big splash already.

Dr. Rick Hangartner, Chief Scientist at recommendation engine MyStrands, posited the following about the relationship between search engines and vendor-specific recommendation engines in a recent guest post on mobile search blog MSearchGroove:

In the near term, search engines will increasingly incorporate simple recommender technologies to handle approximate queries (e.g. “You asked for this, and based on similar queries/behavior by others, you might be looking for this.”). But in the long term, the recommender industry will be larger, and recommender technologies will be more pervasive than the search industry and search technology as we know it. [Because there will be recommendation going on all over the web.]

Recommendation Resources:
*RWW Recommendation Industry Feed Favorites OPML file (save link)
*RWW Recommendation Industry Feeds – Best of Feed (copy and paste to your reader)
*Click to preview the above feeds before subscribing (pop-up window)
*RWW Open Data Sites Search (Visit and Bookmark)

Semantic Web

A Semantic Web has been in the works for a long time but is just starting to hit the scene for real. The idea is that semantic web technologies are able to derive meaning from online content and determine connections where none have been made explicitly.

If I’m looking at a web page about Assata Shakur, for example, then SemWeb tech should be able to determine that she’s the subject of the page I’m looking at and that it’s a biographical page. Once that’s been determined, semantic technology can leverage the two trends discussed above (data openness and recommendation) to do all kinds of interesting things.

As I wrote in coverage of an excellent interview with Semantic Web scientist Yihong Ding – once our software is capable of deriving meaning from web pages it looks at for us, then there’s a whole lot of work that’s already been done, allowing our creative human minds to reach new heights. By pre-processing online content for us, Semantic Web technology lets us start from a point of higher abstraction.

Richard MacManus called Semantic Web application Twine possibly the first mainstream consumer semantic web app, but there’s a whole lot of innovation going on in this space. Major companies are starting to leverage Semantic Web technology under the covers of existing websites as well.

Semantic Web Resources:
*RWW Semantic Web Feed Favorites OPML file (save link)
*RWW SemWeb Feeds – Best of Feed (copy and paste to your reader)
*Click to preview the above feeds before subscribing (pop-up window)
*RWW SemWeb Sites Search (Visit and Bookmark)

Mobile

While Michael Arrington says the release of the iPhone relieved him of any pressure to build a mobile version of TechCrunch, I think there’s still going to be a whole lot of innovation in the mobile space well into the future.

Most of the people online in this world access the web through a tiny little computer they carry in their pocket and also use as a phone.

Mobile means more than just small, though. It also means portable, fast, location-aware and tied to voice, media and the meat-space.

Mobile is already a great analogy for data portability in general – people are thrilled in the US that we can now switch cell phone carriers and keep the same phone number. Imagine if we lost our contacts when we switched phones. The same type of expectations are totally reasonable for services online.

Once mobile really gets tied into open data on the web, to recommendation engines and to the semantic web – then we’ll be cooking with gas.

Mobile Industry Resources:
*RWW Mobile Feed Favorites OPML file (save link)
*RWW Mobile Feeds – Best of Feed (copy and paste to your reader)
*Click to preview the above feeds before subscribing (pop-up window)
*RWW Top Mobile Sites Search Engine (Visit and Bookmark)

Visualization

We’re only going to get so far if we just tell the world, “trust us, all this ephemeral crap is going to change your life!.” A big part of why there isn’t widespread consumer demand for OpenID is that the benefits of it haven’t been clearly communicated. The concept is gaining steam almost in spite of the communication of its advocates, many people believe. The future of OpenID and many other key technical innovations, lies in communicating with people about what they can do with the tools. That is not easy to do with things that are complicated or new.

Just as video has changed the web forever because visual communication is infinitely more evocative than text – so too do I expect the perceived value of visualization to grow by leaps and bounds in 2008.

I wrote a post about 3 methods of visualizing best practices in social software design over Thanksgiving, highlighting the work of Thomas Vander Wal, Chris Messina and the Google OpenSocial team. To that list I’d like to add Dave McClure’s SlideShare archive, where you’ll find images like the one below. This stuff is pure gold. Powerpoint is the future? Well, effective visual communication of complex data-based concepts is going to be an invaluable part of the future.

Visualization Resources:
*RWW Visualization Feed Favorites OPML file (save link)
*RWW Visualization Feeds – Best of Feed (copy and paste to your reader)
*Click to preview the above feeds before subscribing
*RWW Top Mobile Sites Search Engine (Visit and Bookmark)

That’s It! Post Suggestions Below, Please!

I hope these resources will prove useful for our readers in the coming year. Please let us know about any sites that ought to be included here – or let us know if you think I’m barking up the wrong tree and these won’t in fact be hugely influential trends in 2008. Thanks for getting all the way through this long post!

Predictions 2008  —  Has it been a whole year?  I posted my predictions for 2007 on Jan 1, 2007, and here it is, the first day of 2008, and here we go again.  This year I am going to organize my predictions by companies (just the big ones) and trends.  I'm focusing on advertising …

Source:   John Battelle’s Searchblog

Author:   John Battelle

Link:   http://battellemedia.com/archives/004172.php

Techmeme permalink

Ten things that will change your future  —  So Google and Wikipedia took you by surprise?  Nick Galvin looks into his crystal ball and explains what you need to know to survive the next decade.  —  Think back to the days before the network we call the internet existed.

Source:   Sydney Morning Herald

Link:   http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/ten-things-that…

Techmeme permalink

narramissic writes “In the race for Consumer Electronics Show (CES) headlines, companies parade new, hot, and not-quite-ready-for-primetime products while keynote speakers rev things up with predictions for the year ahead. An ITworld article runs down the list of who stuck their necks out too far in 2007, starting with Sharp’s monster 108-inch LCD. ‘The set represented the biggest flat-panel TV developed — a title it still holds today — and came without a price but with the promise of availability during 2007. But wealthy consumers are still waiting. Sharp said recently that it is still working on plans for a commercial launch for the TV set.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lucas123 writes “IDC just released its predictions for 2008 with regards to data storage trends. Its research shows, among other things, a greater adoption of online backup and archiving services, the ‘prevalent’ use of full-disk encryption in the data center, and mainstream adoption of solid-state disk drives due to falling prices. From the story: ‘There are very simple situations and application scenarios where solid-state disks will be worth the risk. It does promise some great potential benefit in terms of I/O … [and] solid state will make a significant impact on reducing heat from spindle usage in server blade deployments and to boost functionality in mobile devices.’ According to IDC, storage capacity is exploding at a rate of almost 60% per year.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The technology with impact 2007  —  The last 12 months have seen plenty of talking points around technology – from the iPhone, to Facebook, the launch of Vista and the XO laptop – but what were the developments, stories or gadgets which had the biggest impact?

Source:   BBC

Author:   Jane Wakefield

Link:   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7153642.stm

Techmeme permalink

StonyandCher writes “IBM has released its second annual set of ‘Next Five in Five’ predictions. The company’s crystal ball also revealed that the long-simmering trend toward “smart energy” devices will proliferate wildly. “Dishwashers, air conditioners, house lights, and more will be connected directly to a ’smart’ electric grid, making it possible to turn them on and off using your cell phone or any Web browser,” a company statement asserts.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

2008 Web Predictions  —  What Web applications and trends will make it big in 2008?  In this post the RWW authors ruminate on the current trends in Web technology and look forward to what 2008 might bring us.  Topics include Google, semantic web, online advertising, recommendation systems …

Source:   ReadWriteWeb

Author:   Richard MacManus

Link:   http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives…

Techmeme permalink

What Web applications and trends will make it big in 2008? In this post the RWW authors ruminate on the current trends in Web technology and look forward to what 2008 might bring us. Topics include Google, semantic web, online advertising, recommendation systems, Facebook, digg, open standards, Mobile Web, search engines, and much more!

So check out our predictions for ‘08 and please contribute your own in the comments. Also you may want to review our track record for 2007 Web predictions.

Richard MacManus, Editor, ReadWriteWeb:

1. Semantic Apps will become popular in 2008, due to their ability to get better content results and make better data connections. Think search engines like Hakia and Powerset, wikipedia-like efforts like Twine and Freebase, and apps that use semantic technologies under the hood (such as AdaptiveBlue and Snap).

2. In tandem with #1, Google will experiment more with Semantic Apps in ‘08. The Knols project, although not overly semantic, is a hint of this direction.

3. Web Services platforms will be a fierce battleground in ‘08, with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla and others competing to provide ‘Web OS’ and online storage to consumers. Unfortunately this may spell the end of a number of startups in this space.

4. Zoho and/or ThinkFree will be acquired by big companies wanting to leapfrog into the Web Office space.

5. The online advertising market will consolidate, after the spate of acquisitions in 2007. CPM will continue to dominate for media brands and CPC for niche sites, although there will be experimentation in VRM and other forms of highly specific targeting of ads. Privacy issues will prevent the latter from becoming mainstream though. The much-hyped CPA (Cost per Action) will continue to be a pipe dream, because publishers simply don’t want it.

6. The big Internet companies will surprise us all by embracing open standards, and attempting to compete with each other with features instead of data lock-in (OK, this could just be wishful thinking!).

7. The most interesting innovations on the Web in 2008 won’t happen in Silicon Valley, but in Asia (China, Japan, Korea). At least one startup from China will break through in the US market with Twitter-like success in 2008 – and it will almost certainly be a Mobile Web app.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Lead Writer, ReadWriteWeb:

1. Twitter will be acquired.

2. Most ad networks will start producing their own content to advertise
against; and some content companies today will get acquired by ad
networks.

3. Online video will become so ubiquitous, including live and mobile,
that everyone will wonder how the internet existed without it. It
won’t feel like a big deal, though.

4. A handful of big companies will let you start logging in with an
OpenID associated with your account.

5. The value of recommendation engines will become all the more clear;
the era of data will be celebrated.

6. People will rebel against Google, at least a little bit. Maybe.

7. People engaged in the new web will do some really awesome stuff that
we’ll all be in awe of.

Josh Catone, Lead Writer, ReadWriteWeb:

1. Tumblr will be acquired.

2. Privacy will be a growing concern in the mainstream, but ultimately
people won't really take any action and for the most part, things won't
change. Some companies and groups (think Mozilla) will push for better
privacy controls for users, while others (think Facebook) will continue
to push the envelope and continue down a slippery slope. Users will
eventually push back, but I am hesitant to say that proverbial "straw
that breaks the camel's back" will come in 2008.

3. OpenID will be adopted by more startups and larger web companies, but
most people (mainstream users) still won’t use it – that’s a couple of
years off.

4. Facebook will continue to grow and their platform will be adopted by
other large social networks. Google will sweat.

5. Mobile web usage will be a big story in 2008. It’s already big in
many parts of the world; and Westerners are about to get hooked. With
new mobile devices that makes web surfing less painful, people will be
more and more connected away from their computers.

6. Mainstream media coverage will be a catalyst for the adoption of Web
Office apps by consumers; and Microsoft will eventually be forced to
change their Web Office strategy and offer a fully online office suite
(but that latter won’t happen in 2008). Offline mode (Gears, AIR, Silverlight,
etc.) will be what really tips the scales and causes mainstream users to
to embrace the as-of-yet unfamiliar world of Web Office applications.

Alex Iskold, Feature Writer, ReadWriteWeb:

1. 2008 will be slow and cautious, with the first half dominated by recession or fear of recession.

2. Facebook is going to see the same kind of decline in popularity in 2008 that MySpace saw in 2007.

3. Digg is going to be acquired by one of the mainstream media conglomerates.

4. Implicit applications, which monitor our habits and automatically infer our likes, will rise.

Emre Sokullu, Feature Writer, ReadWriteWeb

1. Facebook will acquire companies that do the following, in order to strengthen their advertising unit: personalization, behavior tracking, image recognition (Riya?)

2. Facebook will release a browser.

3. However, despite all that… Facebook will decline.

4. Google OpenSocial will be a failure; Google will try to create its own social networking empire by making acquisitions in this space.

5. Microsoft will become more aggresive and buy many popular companies at once (remember Ballmer’s quote). Candidates include SixApart, Technorati.

Sean Ammirati, Editor, ReadWriteTalk (our podcast show):

1. Google will really start looking vulnerable in 2008. While the ‘one trick pony’ comment by Steve Ballmer drew sarcastic responses, this will begin to look prophetic. While they’ll maintain market share in the search industry, the lack of traction in any other of their other initiatives will start to cause frustration. Plus, they will increasingly be perceived as the ‘evil’ company in many of these new initiatives.

2. Closely related, Yahoo’s Hack strategy (see ReadWriteTalk’s podcast with Bradley Horowitz) will start to bear fruit and things will look much more optimistic in Sunnyvale this year.

3. Facebook will start to feel pressure from two trends that will emerge on the web: distributed social networks and distributed commerce systems. For distributed commerce systems, look to see a first proof of concept from the VRM project. Chris Messina’s diso project with Wordpress will be a great proof of concept for distributed social neworks.

4. Non-search advertising on the web will increase in value significantly. This will be done through a lot of innovation in the ad targeting systems (both behavioral and contextual) and new metrics being adopted by Madison Ave beyond CPC and CPM.

5. There will be a lot of innovation in the hyper-local space, putting the final nail in the newspaper industry’s coffin. This will include companies like Outside.in and Yelp moving toward widespread use and new web properties (from both startups and big Internet Cos) emerging.

6. Finally, a 3G iPhone! OK, I don’t know if this is a prediction, but I really really want it to be true :)

Charles Knight, Editor, AltSearchEngines (RWW network blog)

1. In the 1st Q 2008, the true "Google Killer" in search will be in Stealth Mode.
In 2nd Q 2008 the first prototype will begin in closed Alpha mode.
In 3rd Q 2008 it will be ready for the final closed Beta testing.
In 4th Q 2008 it will launch and "Rock and Shock" the world!

2. The classic Vertical Search Engines (Job Search, Health,
Consumer Electronics, Shopping, Video, People, more…)
will continue their dominance over all other Search Engines in their various niches.

3. The Alternative Search Engines will pick up the pace of
partnerships and cooperation, for their solid mutual benefit.

4. Mainstream Media interest in the Alts will increase until
it begins to rival coverage of the five major search engines.

5. The trend towards ‘widgetization’ of the Alts will continue.
Approximately 2 in 10 Alternative
Search Engines (20%) have widgets now, and that number will double in
2008 to 4 in 10 or 40%.

Conclusion

Now it’s time for you to tell us your Web predictions for 2008. Please leave a comment or trackback below!

Crystal Ball image by Blue Cubic Electron Syncrony, via Flickr

Davide Casaleggio sent a tip to Read/WriteWeb about a video his company produced exploring the future of media. It is a very cool 6-minute video, which takes some educated (and imaginative) guesses at how the Web and media will evolve over the next 40-50 years. In the short movie, Google, Amazon.com and Second Life are the big winners – with Google buying Microsoft, Amazon buying Yahoo, and Second Life becoming the dominant virtual world.

The core future media concept is the Agav – an Agent-Avatar, which “finds information, people, places in the virtual worlds”. Here’s where it gets interesting. In 2022 Google launches Prometeus, the Agav standard interface, and Amazon creates ‘Place’ – a company that replicates reality. Then in 2027 Second Life evolves into ‘Spirit’, where people can become who they want to, via avatars. And then finally, the ‘Google overloads’ moment – when Prometeus buys Place and Spirit! By 2050 virtual life is the world’s biggest market and Google/Prometeus reigns supreme.

Of course it may turn out different, but the video does make you think about where the Web is headed. Check it out…