Social Media/ Internet Predictions for 2014

Ahh, Happy New Year! Around this time of year people are either extremely nostalgic or  somehow gain the abilities of Nostradamus. Since 2013 was exactly the best year for me, I’ll go ahead and make some predictions now that my hangover has finally subsided.

Without further ado, here are my predictions for the world of tech, social media, and the internet for 2014. Let’s see if any of it comes true. If not, I’ll just come back and edit this post so it looks like I was smart. That’s what most people do, right?

1. 2014 will be the year the “Internet of Things” comes to fruition. 
   This year the internet and connected devices will perpetuate every aspect of our life. Yeah, they all exist now and have for a while, but we’ll see widespread adoption this year. We’ll use our phones and tablets to unlock our cars and homes, we’ll change the channel on our TV and mirror our screens, we’ll turn off the lights in our house and turn on the security systems. Our lives will get a lot more interconnected. We’ll be able to schedule appointments, move money, and a lot more that I can’t think of or else I’d probably be making it and getting paid right now.
2. Digital Currency will take off.
   This is more like 1A, but regardless, digital currency will take off. Things like Coin will end up being used. It’s already here with Starbucks Cards on smart phones, but either Google Wallet or Passbook will take off. Let’s just see which decides to partner with a bank first. Reloadable cards are great, like Starbucks, but they are too much of a hassle to see widespread use. First company to get a bank on board with it and create a digital credit/debit card wins…as long as they make sure that it can be used anywhere without extra equipment.Bitcoin? Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. Every game has their own currency, not quite sure these kinda things will take off.
3. Social Network usage will diversify.
   No, teens are not flocking away from Facebook. But they are diversifying their social media networks. Instead of just being on Facebook, they’re on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Vine. This will happen with other age demographics. Instagram does a good job at what it does, pictures and video. Snapchat lets us send pictures without taking up all of our devices memory. Vine is just plain fun and easy. Twitter aggregates almost everything we care about. These networks each do one thing well and that is their claim to success. Facebook? Pretty diverse, and right now its greatest strength is its numbers. Can Google+ steal daily users away? If they can, we may see a downfall in Facebook, but I think Facebook will be fine for at least 2014. Pinterest will be an interesting site to keep an eye on. They’re making moves.
4. Social Video will be huge.
   This year we saw brands try their hand a real time marketing, commenting on current events and trying to be in the moment. Some succeeded, but a lot failed. This year we’ll see brands try out social video. Still a relatively new area for advertising, brands will learn what success and failure in this area look like. Vine will continue to grow and we’ll start to see more videos posted by brands on Instagram.
5. Mobile is the new design standard. Location, Location, Location.
   When it comes to websites and content, people will need to start developing and considering mobile devices. I feel like this year will see a huge shift to how people access pages online. Mobile will still trail desktop/laptop browsing, but sites that excel in mobile will see results in their bottom line as consumers utilize those websites inside stores to shop and browse other options. Responsive design was so 2013 maybe even 2012. 2014 will be about how websites can utilize mobile browsers and geofencing to help consumers take the next step into buying products. We’ll see a lot more usage of location based things. Foursquare? Let’s see if they can shine. There will be an opportunity for it.

Let’s hope I can go 5 for 5. But we’ll see. 2014 will be an interesting year for tech and advertising.

Foursquare Blurs the Lines between Digital and Real Life (a repost)

Below is a copy of an article I wrote for a class on January 19th, 2013. It discusses Foursquare Explore and ways for it to leverage the new feature. 

Foursquare just released a new feature called Foursquare Explore. It is a way to visualize check-ins but it does more than just that. It creates links between all of the check-ins.

What’s so significant about that? Well for starters, it helps Foursquare to realize how people act; how they run their errands and spend their evenings. It’s huge visual step in to the world of sociology.  Second, this helps Foursquare to better suit its recommendations of places to go next. This could’ve been helpful earlier this month. With all the Ducks in Glendale, AZ for the Fiesta Bowl, those who used Foursquare could have found out where the best bars, clubs, restaurants and late night munchies were at in Glendale.

In addition, this feature could act as guided tours in some of the biggest tourist cities like London, Paris, and New York. Want to see some landmarks? Just check-in on Foursquare and it’ll tell you where the next closest one is and where everyone likes to take a break for lunch at.

This could be HUGE for businesses and for Foursquare. Think of all the royalties Foursquare could get for directing people to the businesses, and think of how the popularity of businesses could be augmented. Crowd-sourced information could dub businesses THE bar, club, restaurant, or store of the TOWN.

And of course this has a huge impact on users. This new feature satisfies a couple of gratifications.

1. Information- new to the area? don’t know where to eat? what to do? now Foursquare can tell you the hip spots
2. Inclusion- you wanna be at all the hot spots, you wanna see and be seen, Foursquare will tell you where to do that
3. Connectedness- where’s the crowd? Foursquare will tell you!

Digital life and real life are being blurred and this is just one of those things that creating a more interconnected life.

Foursquare Explore can be checked out here. Users can check out their own cities and towns and also check out some of the top landmarks and cities on foursquare.

 

Information in this post taken from a Mashable article.