Someone just asked me what will big this year in Digital.
This is what I gave them off the top of my head.
If enough people report and blog about and the same things, then they will be…
Been around since 2006, but this might be the year it really takes off. Its strength as a news channel was demonstrated during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, where news was twittered by the people of Mumbai before the news networks picked it up. People could get real time information from the people at the scene.
Twitter search ads another dimension to the service, allowing people to see what people are talking about. Brands can follow any talk about them, and can use it to communicate with it’s audience.
This year has seen the likes of Barack Obama and Jonathan Ross become regular twitterers.
Geolocation
Location based services will become a big part of the internet in 2009. As the internet grows it can be harder to find what you want, searching based on location can help. As the mobile internet grows location based services will become more important. We might see Google maps become used as a search results page, with users wanting to see instantly where things are and how far away they are. The latest smart phones have GPS functionality and there are various browser ad ons such as yahoo fire eagle that pin point the location of your computer and provide content accordingly.
The Cloud
This year should see the rise of storing things in ‘the cloud’, essentially storing things online opposed to the hard drive. This enables people to access their computer content wherever, including on their mobile. Currently people have to upload there content to online storage services, but it wont be long before this becomes an automatic process with the computers storage system being primarily in the cloud.
Mobile Internet
Smart phones making the mobile internet easier to use and data costs falling should ensure use continues to grow at a rapid rate. Peoples’ current obsession with mobile social networking (3 have just released a facebook phone) should help drive this. People will be able to have access to all their online content any time any where, but they will also have access to mobile specific services such as the ability to use the mobile camera to take a picture of a product to do an instant price search on it.
Brands to join the conversation
Brands will learn to accept they will be talked about online, negatively and positively. They will start to learn how to join these conversations, and respond to feedback.
Augmented reality
‘Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data’
The line between the ‘real world’ and the ‘digital world’ will really start to blur thanks to technology like this:
Lego let you see what’s in the box on the box – how it can be used in stores.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PrwmHnnSXYo&feature=related – use by ford to display their ka on mobile phones
Vision of the Future – how it can be used in the future on mobile
Image: Craig Caudill
