7 Predictions for 2010
December 29th, 2009I’m not normally one to dish out predictions (at least not at the same time everyone else is) but Claire Cooper from Digital Ministry asked, and it was a good opportunity to ponder. So here they are, Simon Young’s top seven predictions for 2010:
- We will continue to see the push towards data portability and consumers owning their own data. (Although maybe not so much of that last one, the Facebooks and Twitters of the world will try to make it so ridiculously easy to roam around the web using their IDs that people won’t be so concerned with ownership – but any failure by these companies will bring the issue up again)
- Businesses based purely on advertising will see a decline as people trust ads less and less, and other people more and more. In response, advertising will try different ways to become more social.
- Mobile web will become normal and widespread, services like Foursquare will be the new secret weapon for local businesses in the know. Marketing will become about being useful to the customer, combining commercial messages with public service.
- Simplicity and aggregation will be a key playing field. Any service that brings together all your other services or networks – and looks great, and is easy to use – will be popular. Of course it will be a crowded field and there will be many players that do it technically well but neglect the usability.
- Social media will stop being a newsworthy marketing ploy in its own right, as more businesses get on board and start connecting to their audiences. Businesses will need to find something intrinsically interesting about themselves, rather than just the fact that they’re on Twitter (and that their product is great, of course).
- Consumers will be even more wary of businesses engaging with them via social media. The stakes will be very high for being interesting and relevant.
- Tools will arise that allow social media to be more like email marketing – allowing for smart segmentation, personalisation etc. However just as many marketers haven’t taken email marketing to its full potential, they won’t take advantage of these either -and they’ll continue delivering slightly crappy customer experience.
You can see some other Australasian thought leaders’ predictions at the Digital Ministry blog.
Your turn. What do you expect to see in 2010?
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