Definitions

• Social networking - The use of technology to connect people.

• Web 3.0 - The next generation of the Internet.

Predictions

• Ads - Advertising (like the Google ads on this site), will continue to get more and more engaging. Tools to create these ads, particularly interactive ones will become very powerful and popular. The objective will be to draw site visitors into the ad, and to a different site. Bland text ads will be the equivalent of generic product packaging.

• Content sharing - This will remain strong, allowing people to post material for others to access. The difference will be in the reduction of comments. Ratings are a good way to allow a site to self-police content, but comments are often of little to no value.

• Kids - Kids will follow the latest site with games and entertainment, as long as it stays fresh. Their loyalty will be very difficult to maintain as they age out of material and as new sites come on line. For that reason, youth oriented sites should consider the member life cycle, identifying where to attract new visitors from and where to spawn them to. Companies will begin to adopt a cradle to grave approach, probably through partnerships.

• Marketing sites - Sites used for public relations/marketing will remain strong, because they offer information of value.

• Partnerships - Web partnerships will become active, allowing people to move within a sphere of content, seamlessly.

• Social networking - Will be replaced by more resource oriented sites as people realize that connecting over the internet is actually very isolating. Much of the intent of social networking is to share information, however there is a wealth of information already available. Success will be sites that transition gracefully from open, ad hoc media into the organization of user-contributed content that better supports the site visitors. Improvements in search, content organization, automation of content management, and information professionals will be key. Point systems that don’t translate into tangible benefits will not be successful.

• Web 3.0 - Just a buzzword, means alot of different things to alot of people. The web is too diverse to categorize or assign version numbers.

• Web applications - Applications will rely increasingly on frameworks like Zend. The demand for more sophisticated sites will necessitate the use of frameworks for better quality in a timely manner.

• Web sites - Web sites will continue to become more polished. Site visitors will expect seamless application integration and advanced features. Simple HTML sites will be replaced by applications that are easy to manage.