Tag Archive for 'Consumer Trends'

iPad is here!

Even though the Apple iPad won’t be available for another 60 or 90 days (depending on the model), Apple already has its official iPad website up and running.

In addition to showing off some of the applications, features and design and technical specifications, the website also features an eight-minute video with Apple’s design and development team discussing the device and showing it off. If you love Johnny Ive and well-produced promo videos, you’ll want to check it out!

You can watch the video over at Apple.com here. Please also find a NYTimes article on how “The iPad: A Media Machine That Opens Up a New Front” here.

10 Web Trends For 2010

web-trends-2010As the year draws to a close, what does 2010 hold for social media and the web? While web innovation is unpredictable, some clear trends are emerging.

Among the good bets for 2010 online: Real-time, Content Curation, Cloud Computing, Convergence Continues (eBooks are the exception), Social Gaming and more.

This week’s CNN column looks at 10 of the big themes that will shape the next year on the web.

10 Consumer Trends for 2010

ballAccording to trendwatching.com this are the ten key trends to watch in 2010: Business as unusual, Urbany, Real-time reviews, (f)luxury, mass mingling, eco-easy, tracking & alerting, Embedded Generosity, Profile Myning, and Maturalism.

The Real-Time Web

real_time_webNo one knows how the microblogging site and similar online social networks will make money, but investors see a new Web revolution: (the real-time Web).

When entrepreneurs and investors get excited about what they’re calling the real-time Web, they’re talking about services that combine immediacy and social connections in a way that makes them easy and even addictive (amongst others are twitter and facebook).

Real-time Web startups are providing everything from basic utilities and business applications to search and e-commerce. Here’s a look at this new generation. And at this webpage you can find an introduction to the real-time web.

Korea’s Web 2.0 Landscape

New web 2.0 services between 2007-2008
korea_web_20

Existing web 2.0 services in 2006
korea_web_20

Generation G

generation_g

Has it ever been more vital for corporations to ditch the greed and embrace generosity? After all, giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving.

“GENERATION G | “Captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.”

Three trend-drivers for GENERATION G are:
1. Recession and consumer disgust
2. Longing for institutions that care
3. For individuals. giving is already the new taking, and sharing is the new giving

A complete report on Generation G can be found here.

Innovation Avalanche

INNOVATION AVALANCHE
The July / August 2008 edition of the Trendwatching Trend Briefing is now online, covering INNOVATION AVALANCHE, including no less than 41 new business ideas, many of them begging to be introduced to the Dutch market. So get your act sorted and gear up into action mode!

Sneaker Vending Machine

Onitsuka Tiger, the Japanese sports brand, launched a sneaker vending machine on Carnaby Street today. Sneaker vending isn’t entirely new-it’s been done in Japan, off course, by Reebok. Onitsuka Tiger, on the other hand, put some effort into custom-building their machine, which can sell 24 pairs of shoes at a time, in 6 sizes.

Following its London debut, the machine will travel across the UK to bring convenience-buying to the rest of Britain. Fun bit of brand promotion; “What, these shoes? I just got them from a vending machine down the street.” Nevertheless, other unconventional vending machines have been reported in the past such as machines that vend umbrellas and hair straighteners.

Politics 2.0

Twitter NetworkWhen I first saw that Barack Obama “followed” more than 23.000 people’s Twitters and Hillary Clinton followed 0, I thought it was simply bad PR on Hillary’s part. Like Obama, she probably should pretend she’s listening to all those people, even though neither has the time for it.

Now I was left wondering if Obama’s thousands followers could be valuable data? Perhaps analytics companies could rake through those tweets and give the candidates charts about shifting attitudes and responses to speeches. Costly? Not much in comparison to TV ads at state television I assume. Is it worth it for candidates to mine Twitter?

Another way with web video

Blinkx Broadband TVWeb video. Some believe it’s all about low quality, edgy clips which you can graze on at your laptop – others see the internet as simply a way of delivering quality content in high definition to your plasma screen. Or perhaps you want to be able to click onscreen and get a wealth of information from the web about what you’re watching? That’s what Blinkx, a company launching a new online video service, is betting can make it stand out from an increasingly desperate crowd.

Its BBTV application promises to take a ragbag of content, from news clips to documentaries to independent films, and present it to you online with Blinkx’s added ingredient – clickability. The idea is that you are watching a news item about monks in Tibet, you click and get the entire commentary on screen, use that to navigate to the section which interests you, and then click again to draw down all that rich information that the web can provide.

While watching blinkx BBTV, viewers can access transcripts of a program’s audio track and background information on everything from actors and personalities to reviews and locations shown within the video (MediaPost, 2008)

But isn’t it too late for another video wannabe to enter this market? As far as I can see, the audience has decided that it wants either YouTube or mainstream television – and the likes of Blinkx may fall through the gap in the middle.