Top 10 trends that will change your online life in 2008

As the new year 2008 is approaching fast, it’s time to throw some predictions for the things to come in the ring and expose me to your criticism! So here is my personal list of

Top 10 Trends that will change how you interact with the internet in 2008

1. Widgets

Everybody seems to try to capture some space on your desktop nowadays. Obviously “simple” webapplications within a browser are not enough anymore - content providers all over the place will try to convince you to download a small program (like a desktop application or a screensaver) that connects to the internet via a webservice and gives your daily life more or less additional value. A main driver of this development will be Adobe’s AIR (currently in Beta 2), a example of this is the SPUTNIK widget (a now highly on-air-promoted desktop app from a big german radio station) which plays back several program live-streams and offers interaction of the audience (chat etc.)

2. Surfing the API’s

The web was once a place, where a browser displayed some HTML that was delivered from a server. So the user could see a nice layout, later with also multimedia. Then came the age of the webapplication, which led to the fact, that a server now had to open it’s inner structure somehow to the public. This is often done as and called an API. Consequently, this means you don’t need a browser to use a servers functionality anymore and for the web 2.0 this means, you can mix different API’s to get something new (like taking Google Map from their API and mixing with real estate data from a specialized server’s other API). 2008 will bring even more and even more sophisticated versions of this phenomenon.

3. Commerce 2.0

The decay of eBay’s marketshare shows, that they -even if they were once on the forefront of “user generated eCommerce”- didn’t managed to satisfy the changing demands of buyers and sellers any longer (or maybe they just in manners of pure greed didn’t fought brand privacy enough and simply thought that customer service is not wanted by anyone anymore…). So others like etsy.com or dawanda.de could develop by flying under the radar of Sauron’s eye. In times of cheap mass production in China (even for the expensive brands or at least just looking like those brands) and a weekly scandal about toxic toys there seems to be a new demand for customized and manufactured products, that are sold on a personal (”social networked”) basis. Did anybody remember Marshall McLuhan pointing out, that the new electronic media will create a “global village”? So eCommerce will raise in 2008 to new dimension and will do so by focusing on a direct(er) relation of buyer and manufacturer. Interestingly enough even Gucci (some years ago exclusively selling their goods over a network of highly luxurious stores) now offers direct sale on their website.

4. Blogvertizing 2.0

The last months featured the more or less grotesque battle of Google penalizing bloggers writing payed posts by taking their Page Rank away. Besides the fact that I’m not convinced about payed blogging (this blog is also as you see ad-free) I’m also not convinced about just taking someones Page Rank away like our beloved friends from big G did. We as the people don’t exactly know how Google rank their search results that they display to us, but we surely know that they for themselfes put their very own financial interest above the human right of correct information (here you can read their lame attempt to explain their greed). Was there once a company founded under the principle: You can make money without doing evil?
Writing this and taking into account the amount of money now spent for online advertising, it will be the year 2008 where we will see new and better ways of “Advertorials” unlike PayPerPost or Trigami in Germany today (I dont link to this “bad neighborhood” I’m afraid of Google banning me LOL).
Those existing programs seem to be quite ineffective in term for effort/payment for the Blogger - besides the unimportant fact, that Google takes away your PageRank if you dare to blog for those others who also want to make some money (which seems only being allowed to Google). So PayPerPost is trying to start now their own ranking system - but thats just another ranking system and will sooner or later be also just a tool for holding down the competition like Page Rank now seems to be.

5. User Created Content attracts Classic Media investing more into Web 2.0 technologies

Ok, this is just a little biased for Germany, as it is the country I live in and where I can talk best about the developments. Television and Radio in Germany is partly private and partly regulated by public law. The latter stations (both TV and radio) have taken great efforts to establish their offerings in the web 2.0. There are video- and audiostreams of their program, podcasts and archives, which are accesible without additional payment and even great efforts towards building own community platforms. The youth-orientated Radio Sputnik (owned by germany greatest broadcaster ARD) has created a mySpace clone called mySputnik.de. This community is highly “pushed” in their radio shows. Even Bands, who upload their music or videos are played in their radio shows now. It seems to me, like the great broadcasters are not longer just looking for distribution - they also want to be the content owners. This principle is the same, that made youtube interesting for Google or any other community /e.g. Facebook) for sale today.

6. Socialiced Gaming

You heard the hype many times: the web is going to be 3D and Secondlife is the future of gaming :O
That is not the point here. The most successful games today are (besides some others) so called Massive Multiplayer Online Games. The typical subject in this games over the last years were 1. slashing some monsters in a fantasy world, followed by the total different theme of 2. slashing some aliens on a distant planet and (again, what a revolutionary concept) 3. slashing some evil creatures taken from a movie license. This was even boring for the greatest afficinado of those games, so recent titles like Tabula Rasa (which was again advertized as revolutionary) failed to excite the masses or even more failed to find a new audience (e.g. female or senior players). Although development cycles of such titles are long and expensive, I expect 2008 some games to be announced, that incorporate the social web into their innermost gameplay. Imagine playing something like The SIM’s with direct, integrated access to your actual facebook account or selling some in game harvested oak directly via the integrated etsy.com account in your new favourite RolePlayingGame.

7. Social Mashups

Open Social (again some kind of API) opens the door for some applications that take user data from one source and use it elsewhere (e.g. in a game). The interesting thing for 2008 will be, if greater players than the ones that already supporting this new approach will jumping on. But this also opens some startup companies interesting possibilities in gaining marketshare quickly.

8. Search 2.0

Besides the classical search for a keyword, like you are used to search now on Google, yahoo or web.de, 2008 will bring you another interesting possibility. Imagine you want to know “Is Jennifer Lopez single?” and you write this question into old fellowed Frankenstein GoogleBot it will (as he is programmed to find keywords) list you perhaps Jennifer Lopez Fansites and of course some AdSense Ads for buying her new Single. But this is quite Frankenstein‘esque - at least we live in a new millenium, where computers should have some intelligency. If you have an actual question a search engine is not the way to go (perhaps you know that and would have looked into wikipedia…). But let’s stay with our search engine of 2008. Take a look at True Knowledge and you see what the future will be. Asking there the same question would result in a “No” followed by the name of her groom and the date Jennifer Lopez married him. Ok, we all like Wikipedia and could use it instead of doing a phrase search. But it was just an example. Imagine a question like “When does Lie Hard 4.1 premiere in Tallahassee?” where you need connecting a film title, a location and the local cinema schedules of a special date together you get the point: a search engine of 2008 does more than just looking for keywords.

9. Mobile and Embedded Websurfing

The internet is already mobile and daily there are more devices are capable of connecting to the internet. The only drawback is limited screenspace and limited memory of the divice - but this will sooner or later be solved by better and cheaper technology. The great feature of the mobile web is it’s ubiquity. Combined with the features of web 2.0 as being two-way communication the mobile web is a new addition to the lifestyle of many people in 2008. We’ll see more moblogs (mobile blogs) and more uses of applications like twitter.com. Not just to forget a small project like Android….

10. The META-Mashup

This will be any mixture out of the nine trends above: a tourist’s mobile application for sight seeing connecting Search 2.0 with UMTS localization and a Mapservice API (explaining you the interesting things you see around you) or a social gaming widget, that alerts you when interesting things happen in your favorite game while your doing work on your desktop computer.
Maybe you have other ideas that should be included in this Top 10 list. Please let me know and leave a comment!

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