The digital world will continue to march forward and change rapidly this year, and businesses that don’t get on board risk being left behind. Here’s what WeAreDigital founder Karson Stinson says you need to know about the digital world in 2012.
1. Semantic web or Web 3.0
Siri, Web agents and intelligent search will be white hot in 2012.
2. Business transformation
Digital will be more than marketing and no longer an afterthought. Businesses will use digital and digital talent for complete business transformation.
3. The new publishers
Investment in content production will start to become more and more normal. Expect to see some exciting initiatives here with brands and businesses becoming publishers in their own right.
4. Gamification
Brands and business will start looking at using game-like mechanics to create engagement and value around non-game properties. Look out for gamification being used to educate and for the greater good.
5. Social, Mobile and local
Real time and relevant offers will hit the big time through mobile social applications that fuse timing, location and relevancy.
6. Community brainpower
More and more businesses will start to open up their data sources and APIs to their collective user base to help solve problems, create value, innovate and rejuvenate brands and business.
7. Smarter with data
Bust out the pens and calculator for the front shirt pocket. Data Analysts will have the hottest jobs in agencies and brands alike.
This year will finally be the year of mobile, with significant investment being made by business to mobilise their offering. Expect to see large quantities of transactions being made over mobile and also the emergence of the mobile be used in the physical world as a wallet using bump technologies and NFC (near field communication).
9. Digital to Physical
We will start to see many businesses integrating digital into their real world experiences, both for the customer, and for the store staff.
10. Remarketing
Remarketing is where it’s at. Communicate with people who’ve previously visited key pages on your website, giving you a powerful new way to match the right people with the right message. This is not new but we will start to see more sophisticate uses.
