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Technology Predictions for 2006 and Reflections for 2005
By Sharon Housley (c) 2006

2005 literally took the world by storm. The tragedies of the
Asian Tsunami, the Hurricanes that blew through the US Gulf
Coast and the earthquakes that swallowed parts of Pakistan
have left an indelible mark on 2005. While mother nature
cast a shadow on 2005, it was technology that delivered the
impact that resulted in a huge outpouring of donations. The
world was touched by the human element seen real-time in
pictures and videos. Today's technology was able to deliver
the graphical grittiness that portrayed the nightmares
occurring half a world away.

Technology is usually thought of as impersonal, but
something needs to be recognized; without technology the
personal elements of the 2005 tragedies would not likely
have been conveyed to the extent and timeliness they were.
Reflecting on 2005 and looking forward to 2006, technology
will undoubtedly continue play a significant role in the
future both on a personal and impersonal level.

In 2005 Blogs gave birth to splogs, where senseless web
scrapers generated massive amounts of senseless content.
Spam reached a whole new level, right along side the ethical
debate of content scraping. Copyrights have been stepped on
and I foresee a new host of tools that will emerge to
protect content.

SPAM and phishing scams were easier to recognize, but to
their credit, spammers showed off their creativity, finding
additional channels to inundate. From splogs to forum spam,
2005 tech users saw spam as one of life's continued
annoyances. Looking into a crystal ball, I fear that social
bookmarking will become the spam vehicle of 2006, weakening
the value of a collective voice.

Sadly the blog saturation has resulted in web clutter. Due
to increased competition and vast quantities of blogs on
free hosted blog networks services, bloggers competing for
audiences and web traffic will result in significant
abandoned content, cluttering the web with useless
ramblings. The ease of blogging that resulted in saturation
will be its downfall. Credibility will again become
important. Journalists, who have suffered from the
blogosphere in 2005, will have a reprieve as credibility
becomes an issue for bloggers. In 2006 web surfers are going
to look for multiple sources to confirm facts, and rely on
reliable respected sources, community content, and
collaboration like Wikipedia is going to suffer and become
less relevant in 2006. While Wikipedia scores well in
search, it does not perform as well with accuracy. The
Wikipedia community is haunted by spam and like DMOZ, it's
success will be its downfall. The relevance of successful
community wiki's will fade in 2006.

Cell phones have become personal homing devices, and it is
near impossible to locate a cellular phone that is not
capable of manipulating or taking photos, videos, graphics
and text messages in addition to the traditional voice
calls. It is likely the PDA will become extinct in 2006, as
travelers move to a single multifunction device. In 2007 MP3
players will likely be a common feature of cell phones.

Wireless growth is still worth noting, as it has moved from
hotspots, to hot zones, to hot cities. Philadelphia and San
Francisco are leading the way as wireless cities in 2006.

What is in store for 2006? Privacy is a hot topic that is
not going to disappear. Google and the US Government are
battling a Big Brother image. Data mining has made the
collection of data meaningful. Anti-Google sentiment is
growing. Google has fallen from grace, while Google has made
friends on Wall Street, it has disappointed surfers who have
turned to Yahoo and MSN in growing numbers. 2006 will likely
result in a heat up of the search engine war with MSN and Yahoo
scrambling for marketshare and Google walking a tightrope
with privacy advocates on one end and monopoly theorists on
the other end.

Google wants to make money, and like it or not, data is a
commodity. Google will likely use the data from their
various ventures to develop new technologies and personalize
content. Conspiracy theorists believe that the Google's
aggregate data will also be used to optimize the fees
charged for pay-per-click, influence organic ranking, or
worse yet, sold.

Google's growth will continue to motivate privacy advocates
and those in the technology field behind the Attention
Truste movement, to work together, to improve how personal
information and subscription information is used online. I
expect we will see a lot of energy and effort in this area.

Personalized content will be a buzz word for 2006. Whether
it is users selecting Podcasts, iTunes, or purchasing Amazon
recommendations, the web is learning how to cater content
based on user selections and choices. Web surfers see
personalized content as regaining control of what they want
to watch, see, or listen to. From Tivo to podcasting, users
are taking back control. Yet when the web serves content
that is based on past surfing habits, who is really in
control?

In 2005, marketers were told in no uncertain terms, if they
are not using syndication and RSS, they will not survive.
Well, they have one more chance to get it right. In 2006,
marketers must use RSS as an alternative communication
channel. It will no longer be cutting edge, it will be a
must to survive. Web surfers no longer expect to provide
personal information (an email address) for marketing
materials, they expect to have a choice about how they wish
to receive the content.

Vendors selling through affiliate programs lost ground in
2005. Publishers found the easy money of pay-per-click
advertising not fraught with the inherent problems of
affiliate tracking and cookie-killers. The increase in
click-fraud and content scraping on AdSense sites will even
the playing field and make affiliate programs more
attractive in 2006.

The world is getting smaller, and technological advancements
have not only brought us tragedy, but also have opened doors
and the global market is now a viable option for small
businesses. I believe the globalization trend will continue
in 2006.

Top 10 Winners Predicted for 2006:

Cyber Security
VOIP
Attention Data
RSS/Syndication
Copyprotection
Credibility
Privacy
Alternative Energy (reusable fuel, clean energy)
Content Filtering
VideoTunes (iTunes with Video)
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Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a
wireless text messaging software company.
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