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Technology Predictions for 2006 and Reflections for 2005
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By S. Housley
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2005 literally took the world by storm. The tragedies of theAsian Tsunami, the Hurricanes that blew through the US GulfCoast and the earthquakes that swallowed parts of Pakistan haveleft an indelible mark on 2005. While mother nature cast ashadow on 2005, it was technology that delivered the impact thatresulted in a huge outpouring of donations. The world wastouched by the human element seen real-time in pictures andvideos. Today's technology was able to deliver the graphicalgrittiness that portrayed the nightmares occurring half a worldaway.
Technology is usually thought of as impersonal, but somethingneeds to be recognized; without technology the personal elementsof the 2005 tragedies would not likely have been conveyed to theextent and timeliness they were. Reflecting on 2005 and lookingforward to 2006, technology will undoubtedly continue play asignificant role in the future both on a personal and impersonallevel.
In 2005 Blogs gave birth to splogs, where senseless web scrapersgenerated massive amounts of senseless content. Spam reached awhole new level, right along side the ethical debate of contentscraping. Copyrights have been stepped on and I foresee a newhost of tools that will emerge to protect content.
SPAM and phishing scams were easier to recognize, but to theircredit, spammers showed off their creativity, finding additionalchannels to inundate. From splogs to forum spam, 2005 tech userssaw spam as one of life's continued annoyances. Looking into acrystal ball, I fear that social bookmarking will become thespam vehicle of 2006, weakening the value of a collective voice.
Sadly the blog saturation has resulted in web clutter. Due toincreased competition and vast quantities of blogs on freehosted blog networks services, bloggers competing for audiencesand web traffic will result in significant abandoned content,cluttering the web with useless ramblings. The ease of bloggingthat resulted in saturation will be its downfall. Credibilitywill again become important. Journalist, who have suffered fromthe blogosphere in 2005, will have a reprieve as credibilitybecomes an issue for bloggers. In 2006 web surfers are going tolook for multiple sources to confirm facts, and rely on reliablerespected sources, community content, and collaboration likeWikipedia is going to suffer and become less relevant in 2006.While Wikipedia scores well in search, it does not perform aswell with accuracy. The Wikipedia community is haunted by spamand like DMOZ, it's success will be its downfall. The relevanceof successful community wiki's will fade in 2006.
Cell phones have become personal homing devices, and it is nearimpossible to locate a cellular phone that is not capable ofmanipulating or taking photos, videos, graphics and textmessages in addition to the traditional voice calls. It islikely the PDA will become extinct in 2006, as travelers move toa single multifunction device. In 2007 MP3 players will likelybe a common feature of cell phones.
Wireless growth is still worth noting, as it has moved fromhotspots, to hot zones, to hot cities. Philadelphia and SanFrancisco are leading the way as wireless cities in 2006.
What is in store for 2006? Privacy is a hot topic that is notgoing to disappear. Google and the US Government are battling aBig Brother image. Data mining has made the collection of datameaningful. Anti-Google sentiment is growing. Google has fallenfrom grace, while Google has made friends on Wall Street, it hasdisappointed surfers who have turned to Yahoo and MSN in growingnumbers. 2006 will likely result heat up the search engine warwith MSN and Yahoo scrambling for marketshare and Google walkinga tightrope with privacy advocates on one end and monopolytheorists on the other end.
Google wants to make money, and like it or not data, is acommodity. Google will likely use the data from their variousventures to develop new technologies and personalize content.Conspiracy theorists believe that the Google's aggregate datawill also be used to optimize the fees charged forpay-per-click, influence organic ranking, or worse yet, sold.
Google's growth will continue to motivate privacy advocates andthose in the technology field behind the Attention Trustemovement, to work together, to improve how personal informationand subscription information is used online. I expect we willsee a lot of energy and effort in this area.
Personalized content will be a buzz word for 2006. Whether it isusers selecting Podcasts, iTunes, or purchasing Amazonrecommendations the web is learning how to cater content basedon user selections and choices. Web surfers see personalizedcontent as regaining control of what they want to watch, see, orlisten to. From Tivo to podcasting, users are taking backcontrol. Yet when the web serves content that is based on pastsurfing habits, who is really in control?
In 2005, marketers were told in no uncertain terms, if they arenot using syndication and RSS, they will not survive. Well, theyhave one more chance to get it right. In 2006, marketers mustuse RSS as an alternative communication channel. It will nolonger be cutting edge, it will be a must to survive. Websurfers no longer expect to provide personal information (anemail address) for marketing materials, they expect to have achoice about how they wish to receive the content.
Vendors selling through affiliate programs lost ground in 2005.Publishers found the easy money of pay-per-click advertising notfraught with the inherent problems of affiliate tracking andcookie-killers. The increase in click-fraud and content scrapingon AdSense sites will even the playing field and make affiliateprograms more attractive in 2006.
The world is getting smaller, and technological advancements hasnot only brought us tragedy, but also has opened doors and theglobal market is now a viable option for small businesses. Ibelieve the globalization trend will continue in 2006.
Top 10 Winners Predicted for 2006:
Cyber Security VOIP Attention Data RSS/SyndicationCopyprotection Credibility Privacy Alternative Energy (reusablefuel, clean energy) Content Filtering VideoTunes (iTunes withVideo)
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