I gave a speech yesterday in Oslo on Do It Wrong Quickly and you can download the slides for the talk if you are interested. But I hung around to hear Edward O’Hara talk about the Key Trends in 2008 and thought you might be interested in hearing what he had to say, also. Edward leads JupiterMedia’s Nordic group and is a frequent speaker on Internet trends, especially as they affect marketing and media. I’ve heard Edward talk before, and have always been struck by his ability to sum up current goings-on without making the kind of showy and extreme predictions that make headlines but have the inconvenient quality of not coming true.
Here are the top trends, according to Edward:
- Media Fragmentation Continues. Media will continue to fragment by content, by time, and by audience, Edward says. He made the interesting point that the media provider (NBC, The New York Times) is no longer the brand—”the story is the brand.” People want to read the stories they care about and don’t care as much about who gives them the information.
- The Rise of Social Media Marketing. Edward says 2008 is the year everyone realizes how important this is: “14% of Europeans use social media today—that will rise to 40% in two years.” And he adds that it is a deep involvement: “40% of social media users use it every day” and “Networking sites generate more pages views than any other category.”
- Internet Video Arrives. 25% of the audience indicated they use Internet video every day. Edward says that broadband is driving huge increases in usage. He noted that 154 million Americans have broadband access and that the number of Chinese will surpass that in two years. So far, Internet video is complementing traditional TV, but eventually “it will become a cannibalizer,” according to Edward.
- Mobile Media Marketing Emerges. Pundits have been predicting this for years, but Edward says that within two years, most European Telecoms will move to reasonable flat-rate pricing that will change the reticent behavior most people have to use mobile phone services. “People have been taught that using the phone is expensive,” Edward told the audience. He cited statistics that the same people are using PCs and mobile phones, but that they use an average of 7.8 computer applications versus only voice and text messaging on phones. When Telecoms take away the difficulty of knowing what it will cost, Edward predicts usage patterns will skyrocket.
- Globalization. We all know this one is coming, but Edward reminds us that we’ll have 1.5 billion to 2 billion new Web users by 2011, placing nearly 25% of the world’s population on-line.
None of Edward’s predictions are earth-shattering, which is why I tend to think they might come true. It’s helpful for all of us to remind ourselves of what is going in with the Internet marketing revolution that is underway. It’s not stopping anytime soon.
