My technology predictions for 2009, and beyond

1. Content is king, contacts are queen.
2. Media will all be focusing more on monetization of (sometimes: hidden) digital assets.
3. Subscription models for premium features and services will blossom.
4. Filesharing will, in all kinds of disguises, remain a main driver of social media’s success.
5. The most successful communities and social media that don’t have a sustainable revenue model can be acquired relatively cheaply.
6. Big American communities will focus on monetizing non U.S. traffic.
7. Identity portability (as in single sign-on) and profile portability will be war grounds.
8. More traditional media will all have to implement strategies on how to aggregate content from social softwares and social media.
9. Therefore traditional media have to build partnership strategies for the technologies and services they can’t or dare not develop themselves.
10. Aggregation services require (better) filtering technologies.
11. Almost all media can increase traffic and stickiness by integrating (better) communication tools.
12. Content, features and services will become more and more location aware.
13. More things we do over IP must fit “all screens”.
14. Media that help advertisers to target better, and to optimise results, will thrive.
15. RSS will play a more important role in all kinds of content distribution and aggregation.
16. RSS will e.g. be seamlessly integrated in all kinds of aggregation models for social media and in (multimedia) advertising models.
17. Personal (live) video (mainly through mobile2web) will gain popularity.
18. Social networking goes mobile.
19. M-commerce will soar.
20. App stores will soar.
21. Display advertising will further decrease, except for ads targeted smartly to the affluent.
22. Brands will focus more on non-traditional exposure, as in sponsoring, content creation and community building, tool facilitation.
23. Advertisers will force media to accept CPA and CPT models above CPM and CPC.
24. Business intelligence and analytics will get much more attention.
25. Social impact and commitment will become research parameters.
26. Technologies that help to optimise online marketing will thrive.
27. Me-commerce, social shopping and collaborative buying will grow considerably.
28. Online video advertising will gain considerable market share.
29. Concerns about online privacy will frustrate full deployment of smart targeting technologies.
30. Consumers will demand greener IT from their online information and service providers.