What to Expect in 2010 – Part 3
2009 was so last year. In the ever-changing world of online marketing and social media, the trends and best practices of 2009 are quickly becoming things of the past. So what do we have to look forward to in 2010? Here is part three of a three part series detailing what we feel deserves to be watched in the next year. In this post we’ll talk about the last two trends to keep an eye on, Location applications and Privacy.
6. Location
As if it weren’t enough to Tweet about anything and everything happening to you throughout the course of a day, there’s another element to the web that is changing the game. Location is the new layer of the web (via Pete Cashmore), which is profound in and of itself. Think about it. On the web we have information, we have images, we have video and media. But up to this point the internet was akin to another planet – this complex network of floating information that exists somewhere but isn’t something we can really see or touch.
That may be changing now. The addition of location as a new layer of the web now means we can associate a tangible sense to the web. There is a real person, providing real information, at a real place. That’s profound. Keep an eye on location applications such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Brightkite, among a myriad of others. These apps will continue to grow in 2010 and so will the location layer of the web. Twitter and Facebook are already developing a location layer to their platforms, and it will be very interesting to see how businesses interact with location.
7. Privacy
Say the words “privacy” and “internet” in the same sentence and see what kind of response you get. It will probably be something similar to a sarcastic snort. That’s because in an age of digital media, and social media privacy is all but extinct. But the amazing thing is, we’ve given up our privacy voluntarily. Think about how much information exists about you online. If you have a Facebook or Twitter profile, website, blog, flickr account, or YouTube channel, you have a digital thumbprint. And as location-based services and online video continues to grow, we can expect what privacy we have to continue to erode.
Is this a bad thing? Perhaps, but the bottom line is we are volunteering more information about ourselves and our lives than ever before. Expect 2010 to be much of the same – we’ll continue to share information about our lives because that’s the foundation of social media. Whether that’s a convenience or a concern remains to be seen.
This is part three of a three-part series on what to expect in 2010. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed, join us on Facebook, or you can follow us on Twitter.
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