2008 Web Predictions
What Web applications and trends will make it big in 2008? In this post the RWW authors ruminate on the current trends in Web technology and look forward to what 2008 might bring us. Topics include Google, semantic web, online advertising, recommendation systems …
Context & Ripple Effects
ReadWriteWeb is extending its own September 10 Future Web Trends framework into year-specific calls for 2008, continuing an annual ritual the RSS Blog ran with its 2006 Web 2.0 predictions and TechCrunch touched with its 2005 list of indispensable Web 2.0 companies.
Google anchors the exercise, and the surrounding record explains why: in 2007 it shipped features that work without user login, made iGoogle its homegrown standout product, rose to America's fifth-largest listed stock by market capitalization, patented search-result snippets, and paid millions alongside Microsoft and Yahoo! to settle U.S. claims over past gambling advertising.
First-order effects
- RWW hands its readers a 2008 agenda built directly on its September trends list, with Google — fresh off its market-cap climb and iGoogle success — positioned as the reference company for the year ahead.
- Google Apps Premier Edition customers enter 2008 with two open requests on the table: task management and full Calendar synchronization, both logged in December 2007.
Second-order effects
- Rival blogs face pressure to publish competing year-ahead lists, repeating a cycle the RSS Blog and TechCrunch already ran — attention consolidating around whichever outlet frames the trends first.
- Flagging the semantic web, online advertising, and recommendation systems as big-for-2008 topics channels reader and advertiser attention toward startups building in those areas.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the year-end prediction post hardens into an institutional genre through which a small set of blogs acts as the web industry's agenda-setter.
- Google's 2007 record — logged-out features, the snippet patent, the Apps push — makes it the default benchmark against which web forecasts get measured, deepening single-company dependence in trend narratives.
The trend: Year-ahead prediction posts are hardening into an annual media ritual through which a few blogs set the web industry's agenda, with Google as the recurring anchor.