30 Web Trends to Watch in 2010Category: 2010, All news, online marketing, predictions, seo, social media, trends, web, web trends | |
27 11 2009 |
Google Trends for Tumblr, Digg and StumbleUpon
Last year I made about 30 predictions on Web trends for 2009. Many of them came true, others, of course, did not. Still even in those cases the ideas from the Web trends list were useful. Even those trends that disappeared from the radar or haven’t got main stream yet should be watched closely as they might pop up again sooner or later.
So I decided to make a new Web trends list, this time for 2010.
I started from scratch and asked my followers on Twitter to contribute. Most of the Web trends to watch in 2010 can be seen already on the Web so I’m really no prophet I just compiled a list. OK, also I chose those trends that I consider worth watching in 2010 and left out others. I think the following aspects of the Internet will have a major impact next year and beyond.
I divided the upcoming trends into several sections:
- social media
- business
- mobile
- marketing
- search
- SEO
- web design & development
- software
Social Media
- Twitter integration and apps were king in 2009 and are here to stay. Either you integrate or you perish
- Tumblr is successful and growing in the shadow of Twitter, when Twitter finally loses steam will Tumblr be the new darling?
- Market consolidation in social media leaving only a few major players on the scene: Twitter, Facebook and who else?
- Social news (Digg, Reddit) and bookmarking (Delicious) will become obsolete. Already the first wave of social media that is social news and bookmarking lose against Twitter.
- Social browsing (StumbleUpon etc.) is already dead. There were more than a dozen of social browsing services in 2008. Most of them are dead or on hiatus already. More to follow.
Business
- We’ll witness a demise or hiatus of most startups without critical mass of users as the money runs out
- We can expect a proliferation of premium and freemium business models as venture capital stays scarce
- Companies and brands will have to develop a social media strategy in 2010 to stay afloat
- With business accounts and data access selling like hotcakes and additional revenue sources Twitter will become profitable in 2010 already
Mobile
- We’ll see a smartphone systems death match as the market isn’t big enough for all the often incompatible systems we have right now.
- Apple will be losing market share. The iPhone still looks like years ago. They don’t even have a netbook yet. They can’t rely on cult tactics forever.
- Phones and calls for free thanks Google: Google prepares the real Google Phone combining Google Voice and Gizmo5 VoIP to offer free calls.
Marketing
- We’ll see less bullshit and more substance in the online marketing field. As the Web matures more and more people become too savvy to get fooled.
- Advertising replaced on the Web by “ad content” that is non promotional content about the brand, company or products: Less banners more reports.
Search
- Real time search will go prime time for everyone, not just the search geeks and early adopters
- Google and Bing will keep on copying each other in order to capitalize on the search advertising market
- Advanced personalization will lead to your own personal search results for most people rendering ranking checks useless
SEO
- SEO is becoming ubiquitous, everybody does it (BBC etc.) and in 2010 those who don’t will fail to compete
- More SEO experts will return underground again inspite of ubiquitous SEO due to wide spread prejudice of the ignorant against the trade
- Like it or not but we’ll see more jQuery pop ups due to their high conversion rate. Thanks to @rhyswynne for the suggestion
Web Design & Development
- Mobile apps will continue to boom and optimized web pages for mobile use will become common place finally
- HTML5 and CSS3 will allow web designers to offer extra features possible backed by graceful degradation in oder to support for older browsers
- YouTube censorship spawns an open source and DIY video embedding counter movement. We already witness it but in 2010 you’ll look like a noob using YouTube on your site
Blogging
- Blogs get even more authoritative and accepted, becoming the “old media” of the Web
- Quick and clean miniblogging (Tumblr, Posterous etc.) establish a lively sphere between Twitter-like microblogging and blogging. @richardbaxter of SEOGadget agrees about Posterous continuous growth
- Video content finally gets the importance we expected for years now with growing band width etc.
Software
- There will be more cloud computing and web based software or rather webware around and people will use it more often
- Most notably Google Docs will convince more users of the Microsoft Office desktop edition to switch
- At the same time Google Chrome OS will be competing successfully with Windows at least on netbooks
Thanks to Twitter user @thunderror for several suggestions I included in the software section.
Are there other trends to watch in 2010 you considered crucial? Did I forget to mention something that has to be brought to our readers? attention? Tell us in the comment section. The best contributions will be added to the actual list.
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30 Web Trends to Watch in 2010
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