The year 2009 will most likely be remembered as the year social media finally went mainstream. While Barack Obama had already effectively used social media to become President in 2008, the various tools had actually not touched society at large. Until this year, social media was used within pockets and segments of different groups. In 2009 however, it became an ingrained part of society. From reports of Facebook fueling divorces to the local nail solon using Twitter to fill canceled appointments, society felt the impact of social media.
So, what will 2010 be like? Is this trend going to continue? In my opinion, there is no reason to think it will not. Don’t take my word for it though. Here are some articles that attempt to paint a picture of the coming year.
Predictions for 2010 from ReadWriteWeb
“Google Wave will win some respect back as people discover valuable uses for it and get used to the user experience.”
“Facebook will open aggregate-user-profile and social-graph data for outside analysis.”
“MySpace relaunches as a content network, leveraging the bands and filmmakers they already have on board and dropping the emphasis on social networking.”
Here are the main trends to watch in 2010 according to eMarketer:
“Video: Further support for video ad growth will come from sites that offer a deeper catalog of professional video content-such as whole seasons of TV shows (both present and past), exclusives of entire sports events and other premium content.”
“Search: By using social data to filter search queries, search engines will hope to deliver even more relevant results and more effective advertising. Another key change to speed up in 2010 will be more video results as part of general search queries.”
“E-Commerce: Mobile-commerce’s time has arrived, and it is an easy bet that sales in 2010 will pass the $1 billion mark. In 2010, retailers will become more serious about trying to measure social media’s impact on sales.”
The way marketers spend their online marketing budgets was big news this year.
“Online Ad Spend Trends: The main structural force is the move toward more non-advertising marketing. That is particularly true in the online space, where marketers are focusing more on social media and building up their Websites or brand microsites. For that reason, the spending numbers alone can be misleading because they fail to capture the full extent of online marketing’s growth.”
YouTube as social network of the decade (from Mashable)
“As the decade draws to a close, there’s at least one thing we can say about the social media space with a fairly high level of confidence: it’s here to stay. That said, looking ahead to the next ten years, it’s incredibly hard to predict how we’ll use social media - let alone which services will still be relevant - when we get to 2020.”
ReadWriteWeb readers voted the following as best products of 2009:
1. Twitter
2. Google Chrome
3. Google Maps
4. Facebook
5. WordPress
6. iPhone platform
7. Google Apps
8. Adobe AIR
9. Hulu
10. TweetDeck
We live in an age of rapid change and innovation, and in 2010 there will be plenty of it. We are excited for the coming year and look forward to it with great anticipation!
Happy NewYear.
Tags: 2009 in review, 2010 possiblities
December 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Very interesting article. 2010 will be a lot of fun, even if it is going to be a year of frantically trying to keep up with all of the great advances in social media.
2009 was indeed huge for social media but I believe we are still at a beginning of being able to see how people really begin to embrace it for their business.
Glad to have you guys as a place to keep up.