Yet we tech-focused folk have a lot to
keep us cheery. Sometimes it seems like most people just don’t
realize how much technology is changing all of our lives, mostly
for the better. It will continue to do so in 2004.
While there are many interesting developments on the 2004
horizon, the top ten that caught my attention are:
1. The decline of the web browser usage on the desktop as a way
to get to web content
2. The growth of Internet applications – the executable Internet
3. All things wireless
4. Digital media enters the living room
5. Professional journalistic weblogs are syndicated through RSS
6. Microsoft mobile platforms
7. Voice over IP (VoIP) makes mainstream calls
8. Internet radio growth and revenue
9. Online search extends beyond web
10. How online popularity is creating world wide celebrities
WebTalk Radio Show
Sponsors:
.com Domain
Names for as
low
as $4.95
1. Decline of the web browser: Google sounded the bell that
signaled the gradual decline of the web browser by recently
launching the Google Deskbar. The Deskbar enabled direct web
search without needing to use a web browser such as Internet
Explorer.
2. Internet applications: In place of the browser, we are seeing
growth of Internet connected executables or applications that
perform data services and search requests delivered through task
specific applications and not through the web browser. Even the
RealOne media player and the new Windows Media Player have
integrated web viewing into those digital media viewing
applications.
The browser is rapidly being made unnecessary as we find very
specific uses for sending and receiving digital information and
as we become more interconnected to the Internet, whether it is
through wired home devices or wirelessly with our Wi-Fi
connected PDA's and bedroom alarm clocks.
Internet users spent an average of three hours and 37 minutes
per month using Internet applications.
The top five applications are Windows Media Player, AOL Instant
Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger Service and Real
Player. Of these top five applications, Windows Media has the
largest active user reach at 34 percent. AOL Instant Messenger
was next at 20 percent, followed by Real Player, also at 20
percent, MSN Messenger Service at 19 percent and Yahoo!
Messenger Service, which reaches 12 percent of the active user
base.
Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audience
measurement and analysis, reports that three out of every four
home and work Internet users or 76 percent of active Web
surfers, access the Internet using a non-browser based Internet
application. Media players, instant messengers and file sharing
applications are the most popular Internet applications.
“With 76 percent of Web surfers using Internet applications,
functionality has grown beyond the browser to become a
fundamental piece of the overall desktop,” said Abha Bhagat,
senior analyst Nielsen//NetRatings. “It's become harder to
distinguish when you're on the Internet, blurring the lines
between what's sitting on the desktop and what's coming from the
World Wide Web.”
3. Wireless: The wireless movement will really catch hold in
2004 as more product roll out with options to eliminate wires
from the desktop to mobile media players, cell phones and PDA's
with the combined use of bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ultra wideband,
infrared and RF transmissions frequencies. The biggest impact
will be on your mouse and keyboard connectivity as these all go
wireless and the cost for these drop drastically. Wi-Fi will
also connect most home networks in 2004. The cost and security
of these access point transmitters become better and cheaper.
Wi-Fi will continue to grow in the home, with free
community/city sponsored hotspots and corporate networks. The
national paid subscription networks will slow in 2004. More
consolidation and coverage is needed to provide significant
value to the subscriber and more Wi-Fi enabled devices are
needed in the market before people will sign up for monthly
subscriptions. These Wi-Fi subscriptions will need to be part of
your cell phone data plan before mobile Wi-Fi goes mainstream.
4. Home Digital Media: 2004 is the year for digital media to
make it into the living room. This years Consumer Electronics
Show (CES 2004) will feature products that will really bring all
your PC stored digital media into your analog TV or plasma panel
screen. Internet radio & streaming video, mp3 files, photos,
home videos, cable TV, DVD, VHS and radio will be connected to
the PC with the new version of Microsoft's Media Center PC.
The new TV set-top PrismiQ Media Player will enable you to
access and record all your digital Internet audio and video
content on your PC via Wi-Fi or wired network connections for
playback on the living room TV. CES will also show off new
plasma panel TV's that have integrated PC and Wi-Fi that will
enable a new living room media experience.
New adopters will still want their PC separated from their TV
panel. We will want to centralize our home media to a single
media location in the home network that will enable digital
media library playback from any PC or PC-connected plasma panel
on the network. Microsoft's Xbox is going to continue making
improvements until it truly becomes the center of home gaming
and another alternative to the Media Center PC.
5. Professional Blogs: Weblogs in 2004 will go through a
transition as the explosive growth in the number of bloggers
will slow, but the quality of the active blogs will become much
better. The blog technology and uses will expand in 2004 to
include more professional journalists, online experts, major
media and corporations. The blog hype in 2003 will settle into a
smaller group of bloggers as many personal blogs will go out of
date for increasingly longer periods of time as many lose
interest in keeping them up to date. This is the way personal
webpages declined a few years ago.
Really simple syndication, better known as RSS, took the
Internet by storm in 2003 as many bloggers began using this
XML-based standard to share and syndicate written content to RSS
News Reader applications. RSS is not really a new Internet
protocol as it uses the web to syndicate and share content and
links. Look to 2004 to be the year of RSS as we see it compete
directly and improve on the World Wide Web and be a part of the
decline in use of the web browser.
6. Mobile: The words Mobile and Wireless will continue to be the
buzzwords for 2004. The most significant change in the Mobile
and Wireless landscape is Microsoft’s’ growing presence in these
markets. The Microsoft Windows Mobile platform will make 2004 a
year to remember. The early reviews coming out about the
Microsoft Smart Phone and Pocket PC Phones are strong now and
will continue to only get better over the next 12 months. 2004
will present to us the opportunity to truly integrate our cell
phone smart phone with our desktop PC. For corporations, this
Microsoft Mobile platform will enable real-time access to
network data and communications from anywhere at anytime by
combining Wi-Fi, bluetooth and cellular data connections. Look
for 2004 & 2005 to be the years Microsoft integrates all of its
applications into a true mobile wireless computing and
communications experience.
7. VoIP: Voice-over-Internet Protocol voice data communications
services will explode in 2004. The baby bells see the path ahead
and it is not analog switched phone calls. Internet based phone
calls are here to stay and is a reality that all telephone
service providers must provide or they will die. Look for some
big VoIP service announcements early in 2004. Consumers will win
as VoIP will enable lower cost long distance calling and better
integrate the services provided by present telephone companies
as they become data companies in 2004.
8. Online Radio: Digital video and audio consumption will show
significant growth in 2004 as streaming media, Internet radio
and downloadable formats continue to grow in popularity. Music
and videos will be the main drivers of this growth. Don't
overlook the growth of digital media consumption in areas like
news and talk radio. 2004 will bring new networks and devices to
consume digital media from media enabled smart phones, PDA's and
new media playing devices. This growth will push listenership of
Internet radio to 20 million listeners per week and thus usher
in a flood of much needed advertising revenue opportunities for
online radio stations and shows.
9. Search: Online search will go beyond just the web and will
dramatically change in 2004. Google will continue to lead the
changes to online search, but Yahoo and Microsoft will steal
some of Google's search market share. The New Year will continue
with the growing effort to index more than just the World Wide
Web, as search companies find other deep database information to
index and make public on the web.
Amazon.com was a surprise player in this effort with “Search
Inside the Book”, an entirely new way for customers to find and
discover books by searching the full text inside them, not just
matches to author or title keywords. With this new collaboration
with publishers, Amazon.com is enabling customers to find books
at Amazon.com based on every word inside more than 120,000 books
-- more than 33 million pages of searchable text. Customers can
also preview the inside text of these books. Search Inside the
Book is integrated into Amazon.com’s standard search and
includes books from all genres.
Look for more surprises from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in
2004. Look for location-based search, indexing digital media and
more clustering by keyword search results. All of these search
innovations are driven by online ecommerce, as people look for
information of all sorts as the find products to buy. Ecommerce
will continue to boom in 2004.
10: The New Celebrity: Lastly, the most insane twist in 2004 and
beyond is the online creation of worldwide fame and celebrity
first on the Internet. The example that comes to mind is the
Paris Hilton online sex video in 2003. Ms. Hilton’s fame was
created online first and then it impacted the offline world. We
will see more stars created online in 2004. All you need to do
is watch the content of SPAM emails and the top five search
keywords to follow all high impact trends online in 2004.
Back Home>> |
