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Web Trends to watch in 2008 and thoughts on Browsers
They asked technology bloggers to weigh in on what trends to watch in 2008. Many of these will seem fairly obvious but some are pretty insightful. Topics include: Facebook, Twitter, SEO, consumer generated ads, local search, blogging, mobile web apps.
What struck me in going through this list, and in making my own, is that many of these items were trends to watch over the last couple years. Perhaps Web 2.0 is stalling out? It does seem like we are hitting something of wall.
Should we blame the browsers? Since my company develops websites we are constantly dealing with restrictions of developing modern websites that can function on relatively antique web browsers, meaning Internet Explorer 6 which is still about 30% of the market depending on the site. Word is that Microsoft has now started forcing businesses to upgrade to IE 7- info here. This might be what is needed to push web development to the next level, 3.0 or maybe just 2.5.
As it stands right now we almost have to build two different sites, at least in terms of the style sheets and other work-arounds, one for Firefox and IE 7 and one for IE 6. Sometimes we simply have to not do something since IE 6 can't handle it. This is particularly true with websites that use a good deal of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).
So I look forward to a time when I don't curse IE 6 on a daily basis for being total junk. It's not here but when it arrives it could be almost as transformative as near ubiquitous broadband has been.
Web Trends Article on AdAge
My Post on 2008 Web Trends on Small Box
5 Comments
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Comment by Jeb Banner on March 17, 2008 at 9:39am -
Good point about SMO, I had actually posted about that but forget to include it in the wrap up. You're right about how things are old to people in the biz but are just being discovered by the rest of us.
Personally I think Facebook is on its way down, it's probably peaked. Like Friendster and My Space, it will still have users but I wouldn't be surprised to see it start to sink in terms of time on site.
I think this format, Ning, is the future. People want niche communities. These catch all community sites like Facebook and MySpace are for kids, in my opinion, and as more and more heavy internet users age they are going find places that serve their specific interests. They, meaning we, don't have time to wade through thousands of pages of strangers and their multitude of web apps bogging down our browsers.
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Comment by Jeb Banner on March 17, 2008 at 9:43am
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Also, I think that websites like Facebook are a little different since most of the users are on modern browsers. I tried to find some stats on percentages but came across this post about how Firefox is the new killer app. Interesting links from this page.
http://bigblog.com/open_source/forget-facebook-the-web-s-platform-is-firefox-1336686712.html
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Comment by Eric Prugh on March 17, 2008 at 11:31am -
You might be right on Facebook. It will probably become more and more targeted at a local community. I find that niche sites like this are popping up more and more.
Another big one for your list, which has come about very recently, is Yahoo! accepting the sematic web into it's searching capabilities. Using microformats and other standardized formats to better represent crawled information is going to be huge in returning more targeted, relevant search results. Pretty cool stuff.
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Comment by Jeb Banner on March 17, 2008 at 11:33am
- yeah, the semantic web, we were just talking about that here at the office. I need to learn more about that. I wonder what Scott Abel (ContentWrangler.com) has to say about that. It's kinda his thing if I recall correctly.
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© 2008 Created by Pat Coyle
Millions and millions of people are using Facebook every day now, and it's not because of all of the Ajax stuff they have going on or the way their stylesheets work. In fact, when I joined Facebook 5 years ago, I don't think there was a single Ajax call on the entire site.
I guess what I'm saying is that I firmly believe that "Web 2.0" and social networks that succeed are not just designed or executed well (Twitter's design is kind of crappy in my opinion... and MySpace?), but actually connect people and have a really fun or cool concept behind it. And there are awesome ideas popping up everywhere for new ways to execute cool social networks.
Social networks have proven to be really successful for marketing, so I think "Social Media Optimization" needs to be on that list. Interacting within social networks to promote yourself is a great way to market yourself or your business. They continue to be on lists of trends because they continue to prove this point time and time again.
Some of my recent favorites...
EveryBlock: http://www.everyblock.com/
See what's going on around your neighborhood including filmings, crimes, and street closures (among others).
Mint: http://www.mint.com/
Manage your budget, get recommendations, and visualize how you're spending your money.
Clicky: http://getclicky.com/
Web analytics that allow you to drill down for more user-focused analysis. You can actually watch a live feed of how people are using your site! (OK, this may suck on IE6).