Sunday, December 28, 2008

High-Tech Predictions For 2009

With the new year fast approaching, here's a look at some high-tech predictions for 2009. Be forewarned, the global economic meltdown is a recurring theme in quite a few doom-and-gloom scenarios -- but I'll frontload the post with intrigue rather than sorrow.

"Now with connective technologies like Facebook Connect, Google FriendConnect, and OpenID, consumers will now be able to see reviews, experiences, and critiques from people they actually know and trust." - Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research

"Twitter will continue to achieve legitimacy. But more than any push-channel, Twitter will give customers, advocates and critics unprecedented access to corporate personnel and vice versa." - Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company

"I believe we'll have more focused velvet-rope social networks in 2009 where the tools and the goals match verticals of interest instead of the general commons of Facebook."
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs

"Exclusivity trumps accessibility. Having thousands of friends becomes 'so 2008' and defriending becomes the hot new trend, driven by overwhelming rivers of newsfeeds." - Charlene Li, Altimeter Group

"The mobile industry will see renewed interest and growth in 2009 following the success of the iPhone and developments such as the Gphone resulting in consumers taking 'PC' habits with them on the road." - Netimperative

"There is considerable evidence that use of casual gaming sites increases in a downturn. GP Bullhound expects a number of these Web sites to feature heavily in 2009, particularly those that charge per game or operate a subscription model. - Netimperative

"...a tough year for digital publishers with many expected to drop out of the list having either been acquired or have felt pressure on advertising revenue. Digital publishers will have to innovate to generate additional revenue streams via subscriptions and harnessing their stables of online users to generate incremental ecommerce revenues." - Netimperative

"Five out of every 10 magazines and newspapers will go out of business, scale down their frequency or move entirely to the Web. This will not just be survival of the fittest, rather survival of the most willing and able to adapt to the changing media paradigm, and throw all of the old rules out the window." - Andy Cohn, Fader Media

"Bankruptcy becomes the new black for media companies that were financed by heavy debt. More closings of magazines and newspapers and more survivors clinging to the online world as a life boat. Fundamental problem of the digital age vs. print. While the gross numbers grows, advertisers still don't invest in all the niche products with anywhere near the level of support that they once had for old mainstream media." - Keith Kelly, "Media Ink" columnist, New York Post

"Web sites will continue to be targeted by mass scale SQL Injection attacks, littering back-end databases with Web browser based malware, designed to infect their online web sites -- and that is only if we are really lucky and the bad guys stop there." - Jeremiah Grossman, WhiteHat Security

"The first six months of the Obama administration will be shaky, as the new media team experiments with different formats of video sharing, public commenting, and blogging. The next six months will set the stage for how change.gov becomes whitehouse.gov in 2010. - Ari Herzog, online media strategist

"Green IT will continue to be a focus for the enterprise, not only because of green issues, but also because of the cost of power. For the first time, businesses are really looking at their energy consumption and examining where they consume energy in the network." - Phil Edholm, Nortel Enterprise Networks