There are four key areas in which you’re going to notice changes, as described next.
Increasing Mobility and Reliance on Mobile Devices
Mobile is the largest and fastest-growing Web 3.0 trend in online marketing!
BlackBerrys and iPhones are becoming the norm. Text messaging used to be the gold standard. Now, if you don’t have e-mail and Web access, your phone is considered ancient. This trend will affect your personal life as well as your business life.
Resistance to Sharing Information with Everyone
The openness of the Web is causing some major issues with personal security. Identity theft is massively on the rise. In 2008, there were almost ten million victims, a 22% rise from 2007, along with incidences of viruses and spyware. Consumers and businesses are starting to get more skeptical about putting information on the Web as they become more aware of the possible repercussions.
Whatever you put out on the Web can be found, digested, and used by anyone. In fact, there have been recent cases of hackers using the Web to rummage around in your hard drive and even to turn your own monitor against you, remotely activating your webcam and watching what’s going on in your office (without your being the wiser).
In addition to the technical protections people are installing, not to mention the strict rules of online conduct they’re imposing on their workplaces and families, there is a trend of microcommunity sites and tribes, as Seth Godin calls them in Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Facebook will not become a thing of the past, but smaller, more centralized and specialized groups and social sites will become more prevalent. As a marketer, you will need to establish a presence on these sites so that people can get to know, like, and trust you.
A Reduction in the Need to Be “Belly-to-Belly”
There are many reasons people are continuing to flock to the Web for virtual communication instead of jumping on a plane for a face-to-face meeting, with the largest reason being cost. It is very expensive to fly across the country, stay in a hotel, dine out, take taxis, and on top of it all miss both work and, more important, family time. Virtual trade shows are gaining in popularity. SecondLife.com continues to get larger, and services like GoToMeeting and WebEx.com are attracting new customers like crazy. Citrix (which owns GoToMeeting) continues to attract more than 15,000 new users each month. WebEx touts more than 7 million worldwide users leveraging its tool each month.
Once you go virtual, you may never want to fly again, at least for a business meeting. Once you go cam-to-cam, face-to-face will never be the same!
Everything Is Continuing to Go to the Web
Anything and everything continues to go to the Web. Twelve-year-olds are running million-dollar social networks, pizza companies are taking orders through the Web, your family diner accepts reservations on the Net, your grandma is tweeting, your long-lost cousin runs a popular tribe on Second Life, international spies are using it. And the list goes on, and on and on. This trend will not change.
