10 Technology Trends for 2010
December 27th, 2009
Updated: January 10th, 2010
2010 is shaping up to be an exciting year of significant change. The following trends include my predictions about how tech will improve over the next twelve months.
The 10 topics below are generating buzz right now on Twitter and across the social sphere of the web. It is safe to say that these topics will continue to develop as news surrounding these topics are released during the months to come.
1. Tablet computers will receive plenty of attention once Apple releases the tablet device, sometime during 2010. Amazon will perhaps respond with a full color kindle. Amazon sold more ebooks for the Kindle than real books during Christmas this year.
Competitors such as the joojoo are swarming the market with a cheaper alternative. I would not buy the joojoo because it was supposed to be called the TechCrunch CrunchPad, but the deal fell through. Now TechCrunch founder Arrington is suing the founder of joojoo.
2. The Apple iPhone community is continuing to thrive, but expect tough and serious developments driven by intense mobile market competition.
Apple is thriving in the mobile market and eating into the immense smart phone market share held by the Canadian technology company RIM. A new Apple phone might be released mid-year.
If the iPhone platform receives a software update it will be able to better compete with emerging competitors like the Andriod Platform and WebOS. The last time a new iPhone was released, the iPhone 3GS, it happened at around the same time the new OS was released as well. iPhone OS 3.0 features the much sought after cut, copy, and paste features.
Swipe keyboard technology should be improved in 2010 and continue to make more of a mark on the mobile market. I am eager to test swipe keyboard technology and I hope a swipe keyboard app is released for the iPhone.
3. Twitter will almost certainly continue to increase in size in 2010. Currently there are about 18,000,000 Twitter users who tweet at least once a month. I am predicting that Twitter will double in size to 36,000,000+ users by the end of 2010.
4. Barack Obama will leverage the social media revolution to create even more significant change in the world than he already has. In 2009 he was just getting warmed up.
5. Twitter is poised to change the way we engage with the Olympics and celebrate Olympians. Vancouver 2010 will be the most tweeted about Olympic games ever, due to Twitters recent growth. If you are interested in the 2010 games check out my Vancouver 2010 Twitter list.
6. Facebook will reach 400,000,000 users and announce its IPO, making facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg very rich.
7. Ashton Kutcher @aplusk will be dethroned as king of Twitter by Ellen Degeneres @theellenshow or Britney Spears @britneyspears.
8. MG Siegler thinks Geo location will become an increasing factor in 2010 on the web, and I agree. Twitter will become more financially viable as they offer enhanced super tweets featuring geo information. Foursquare and gowalla will continue to improve and receive millions in investment.
9. Google increases their dominance of the Internet with Wave becoming more mainstream, search becomes more realtime, and the Chrome browser continuing to increase market share.
10. The Social Network Friendfeed might make a resurgence after some technological improvements improve the platform. Since friendfeed was purchased by facebook it seems to me that it would make more sense for friendfeed developers to focus on the development of the platform with the largest user base, facebook, instead.
In the past friendfeed has been a platform where innovation can be tested, and if it was sucessful it was often adopted by platforms such as facebook and twitter. After the “like” feature was implemented on friendfeed, and was clearly a success, facebook integrated it and now millions of facebook users can “like” billions of pictures.
Friendfeed announced real time search and linked #hashtags just days before Twitter implemented these same improvements. Friendfeed offers the useful service of syndicating rss feeds into a common lifestream of events from the feeds of different account you use across the web. As people on the web use more socially integrated sites a greater demand for this feed syndication will emerge. Friendfeed adds value for socially minded people who are interested in easily keeping track of their conversations online, and I will be interested in seeing if the technology already implemented on friendfeed can be integrated into facebook.
For more of my thoughts about 2010 Tech Trends check out this awesome post: 10 Trending Topics worth Tweeting About in 2010.
