Trends Report

2012 TECH TRENDS

2012 TECH TRENDS

Looking Ahead: 30 Trends that will impact your business in 2012

BY WEBBMEDIA GROUP STAFF

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends
2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

2012 Tech Trends Quick List

This report includes some of the major trends that we are watching in 2012, however this is not meant to be an exhaustive or comprehensive list. Webbmedia Group routinely tracks 80 - 120 trends simultaneously, and works to understand those which will impact our clients, those which will cause a fundamental shift in media consumption behavior, and those which will aect general consumers in the near-term. DATA Big Data Quantied Self Goes Mainstream Algorithmic Backlash INTERFACES OR (object recognition) Graphic Interfaces PUBLISHING Digital Independent Publishers on the Rise Longform Singles Become Popular Visual Bookmarking Topics COMMERCE Retail-Supported Publishing Alphabet Soup Commerce Virtual Items Continue Ascent ENTERPRISE The Cloud DIGITAL CULTURE China Rising Gameication For Employee Productivity Privacy Concerns Women Ethics Concerns and Digital Content Technology Leads Revolutions VIDEO Co-Viewing/ Social TV Platforms The YouTube Network Elections Coverage MOBILE Mobile Scanning and OCR Context-Aware Mobile Apps Mobile Payments SOCIAL Social Curation Social Messengers Social Indexing AUTHENTICITY Digital Identity Authentication Authenticity Tools for Photos

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

Executive Summary
In the past year, we experienced a phone that recognizes our voices (and answers questions). Tablet and mobile sales nally eclipsed PCs in many parts of the world. Hackers modied a gaming system to deliver personalized advertisements as customers walk past. Meantime, smart retailers have discovered the magic of online ash sales, while publishers look towards innovative syndication methods. In 2012, we expect to see an emphasis on sophistication. While we may not see completely new devices or systems, we will certainly see new collaborations, interfaces, mobile-social opportunities, as well as a whole lot of data. This report includes 30 trends we expect to emerge in the coming year.

About This Report and Methodology

Webbmedia Group uses a number of traditional and nontraditional research methods to track trends that include: Conversations with innovators, investors and analysts Patent lings and awards Meetings with academics and research institutions Data analysis Competitor work and insights Focus groups Social outreach Personal observation

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

DATA
Big Data
Information is everywhere, and more than any previous year in our history, 2012 will be the year of data. Were recording our daily activity with BodyMedia arm bands and syncing our biometrics with our Android phones. Hacker-journalists are converting huge datasets for use by everyday newsroom reporters. Hypercreative data visualization teams, such as JESS3, are creating stunning charts and graphs appealing to the non-geeky set. Untold amounts of healthcare, government, personal-location, business, academic and transportation data can be mined for research as well as to generate answers about our eciency, eectiveness and productivity. In 2012, we anticipate seeing a number of new initiatives that attempt to crack the big data nut.

The Quantied Self Goes Mainstream

Gadget geeks have always found ways to hack their devices in order to track personal statistics: amount of sleep and exercise, food consumed, steps taken in a day, and so on. Devices like the Nike FitBit introduced this idea for athletes to devise new workouts and new ways to motivate themselves. More recently, Jawbone introduced the Up, which is worn as a bracelet. It tracks diet, sleep and exercise, and can be connected to a mobile phone or computer to download and collect trends over time. We will be seeing more of these devices, designed to be low-prole, convenient, and easy to understand.

Algorithmic Backlash

Algorithms have made social networks, retail sites, and other interactive web platforms smarter, utilizing existing data to shape our experience. But the limits of this approach are beginning to materialize and frustrate people who may wish for greater autonomy and less automation. On Facebook, users are beginning to add text to their images in order to game the system, because the algorithms privilege images over text posts. In the coming year, well see more backlash, more workarounds...and as a result, perhaps smarter algorithms.

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

INTERFACES
OR (object recognition)
Oblong Industries recently unveiled its g-speak spatial operating environment, which was the culmination of three decades of research at MIT and uses object recognition. You may already be familiar with Oblongs work, which was featured in the lm Minority Report. g-speak combines a "gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels to meld humans with information displays. You may not buy a g-speak environment for your living room in 2012, but do expect to see OR in mobile apps and devices. High-end sensor processing, enhanced cameras and troves of databases will enable you to snap a photo and instantly glean information about the person sitting next to you on the train, the ingredients in your entree or even the designer of your friends new shoes.

Graphic Interfaces

In 2011, we saw a number of new graphic interfaces. The New York Times debuted its magic mirror, which uses Microsoft Kinect to recognize a users face and then becomes a morning bathroom companion. It can recommend what shirt to wear with what tie, let you search the web, check the weather, read your email and access your prescription medication information. Japanese tablet manufacturer Wacom released its Inkling, allowing graphic artists to use a special pen and receiver clip to draw on any surface. Tether the clip to a computer, and everything that was drawn can be imported into just about any image editing program. We expect to see more interactive surfaces in the coming year as well as new tools to access them.

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

PUBLISHING
Digital Independent Publishers on the Rise
After the panic over the decline of print publishing, entrepreneurial editors are overcoming their fears of the unknown and stepping into the digital domain. Companies like The Atavist, Byliner and Spot.Us (now merging with American Public Media) are testing new approaches, not only to format and distribution, butimportantlyto business models, including community-funding strategies and prot-sharing deals with authors.

Longform Singles Become Popular

We are seeing a signicant increase in reader interest and willingness to engage with long-form journalism on digital devices. Again, the examples of The Atavist and Byliner are pertinent here, as well as curatorial ventures like Longreads.com and Longform.org. These gather great writing from both print and digital publications (Vanity Fair, GQ, National Geographic, major newspapers), aggregating them in one place and integrating with services like Instapaper to encourage people to bookmark and read long articles later. This is closely tied to tablet ownership and use, and propagated through Twitter with the hashtags #longform and #longreads.

Visual Bookmarking

Early in 2011, the once wildly popular social bookmarking tool, Delicious, was unloaded by its corporate owner, Yahoo, having lost its luster among Internet users. But social bookmarking in general, which Delicious pioneered, remains extremely current. The best among the current generation use visual navigation as the guide, capitalizing on the abundance of beautiful eye candy on the web. Bookmarked items automatically get aggregated and organized in a design-forward presentation. Sites like Pinterest, Svpply, Ffound, We Heart It, The Fancy, Zoo Tool, Dropular and Visualize.us are the most popular, and some have pulled in VC funding following launch. The tools function well as retail generators, generating additional revenue streams for developers and partners.

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

Topics

Aggregation (even personalized aggregation) no longer solves our information overload problem. In 2010, we saw the debut of Flipboard and the reintroduction of Pulse, which are dynamic content curation apps. Now were seeing topic-focused dynamic curation and recommendation built into apps and websites. Some of the players in this space include Scoop.it, Twylah and Storyful. At the end of 2011, Google launched a Flipboard-like topics aggregator, Currents. (It had been code-named Propeller during development.) As much as some news organizations may grumble that basic topics pages dont drive trac or serve the user, these newer, dynamically-organized pages that include curation have been tremendously successful. Grouping people and companies together is a great way to keep information organized, and uid topic pages that continually update help consumers make sense of all the information thats available. Expect to see a lot of dynamic topic pages -- even if theyre called something else -- in 2012.

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

COMMERCE
Retail-Supported Publishing
Many retailers are choosing to integrate editorial content related to their products into their sales platforms, rather than (or in addition to) purchasing ad space in third-party locations. Powerful online retails companies like Gilt Groupe and Groupon are hiring writers and editors to produce content that gives people another reason to visit the site, with the goal of converting readers to buyers.

Alphabet Soup Commerce

E-commerce has been around since the early days of the Internet, but in the past year weve seen a proliferation of new digital points of sale. Facebook (Fcommerce) oers ads, but there are a number of other shopping tools and outlets within the social network. Walmart used the Shoppycat Facebook application during the 2011 holiday season, while other retailers such as Best Buy, J.C. Penny, Delta and GameStop established Facebook storefronts. With Amazons new in-app and on-Kindle purchase capabilities, more consumers are able to buy everything from magazines to single essays to garden hoses on their Amazon devices. Even the Twitter platform has been monetized with a selfserve ad platform that enable electronic payments. In 2012 we expect to see a signicant change in mobile payments as well (see the Mobile section for more details).

Virtual Items Continue Ascent

The virtual good business model is proving to be a genius way to drive revenue. From Farmville purchases to Facebook credits and well beyond, its an innitely scalable model. If demand for cars increases, car companies need to invest in a bigger plant, but if the demand for bits rises, the dealers of those bits do not have to scale their own overhead in correspondence with sales. Prots just keep rising.

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

DIGITAL CULTURE
China Rising
By the beginning of 2012, more than 550 million Chinese are expected to be online -- six million new users are going online every month -- and nearly half of new Internet users will use a mobile device to access content. China has more mobile users per capita than any other country in the world, and most people upgrade their phones in less than 12 months. Baidu, a Chinese-based Google rival, now handles more than 80% of all search queries in China and is reemerging as a music service and news content source. It has even launched an Android competitor, Yi. The Internet continues to grow and evolve daily, and more of it is being shaped by and for a Chinese audience. Meantime, government crackdowns and monitoring will continue to be a major concern in 2012.

Gameication For Employee Productivity

The social gaming trend is nding its way into apps for running ecient businesses. Several new ventures popped up this year that oer simple game dynamics for sales-level employees to compete with one another for the greatest number of completed sales. Managers and business owners can give employees access through company computers as a playful, team-building approach to motivate hitting higher numbers. We expect to see more games debut in 2012, as well as an emphasis on incentives for high digital achievers.

Privacy Concerns

We are uploading millions of photos every day to social networks, and in the process were attaching rich data along with them: whos in the photo, where the photo was taken, even what equipment was used. Combined with social check-in services, which continually show our physical locations and who were with, a number of clever search tools have emerged that can eortlessly divulge a persons name, age and interests simply by snapping a photo of his or her face. While sophisticated users have expressed concerns about their privacy, younger mobile and social network users are more and more willing to share everything with everyone. Facebook continues to change its terms of service often, but most users arent aware of what personal information is being shared with the outside world. What -- if anything -- to do about our digital privacy will be an ongoing discussion throughout the next year.

Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

Women

The tech world may seem largely dominated by men, but a cadre of smart, creative women have been hard at work -- and often hardly-noticed -- leading product development, tech innovation and startups. Groups such as TEDxWomen and advocates like Change the Ratio are working to highlight both successes and inequalities. In 2012, we expect to see more woman receiving funding, speaking at conferences, being interviewed by mainstream media, judging awards and getting recognition for their many contributions in tech and beyond.

Ethics Concerns and Digital Content

In 2011, there were numerous high-prole ethics questions at major tech/ journalism companies. Tech blogger Michael Arrington launched a $20 million venture capital fund that would invest in many of the companies covered by his publication, TechCrunch. Microblogging platform Tumblr, which is used by many in the fashion industry, made news when it sent 16 bloggers to Fashion Week shows at their hosts expense. Tumblr was charging brands as much as $350,000 for private events with bloggers, and in return, brands would receive guaranteed product placement within blog posts. The Whats Trending web series on CBSNews.com posted a tweet that Steve Jobs had died (well in advance of his actual death), and then issued a snarky response: Apologies -reports of Steve Jobs [sic] death completely unconrmed. Live on. As the media landscape continues to evolve, newsrooms, developers, marketing and sales departments and content producers of all stripes will need to question their activities and discuss whats appropriate and why. In 2012, will transparency be the new objectivity?

Technology Leads Revolutions

The Arab revolutions in 2011 were enabled because of Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and BlackBerrys Messenger service. The ease of use of social networks combined with the ubiquity of inexpensive mobile devices has empowered the previously disenfranchised. Due to the success of organized movements in the Middle East, more groups will use mobile phones and social networks to catalyze their own revolutions around the world in the coming year.

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Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

VIDEO
Co-Viewing/ Social TV Platforms
More and more people are watching television with a companion device, whether it is a mobile phone, tablet or laptop computer. In the past year, weve also seen the rise of video broadcasting outside of the set-top box. A number of new services provide a platform meant to be used by traditional and new devices. Flingo, a new platform launched after two solid years of work by the Bittorrent team, allows users to ing content between screens. Denso is an iPhone/ iPad/ Android app that allows users to save video content to an account and then stream on just about any device. In 2012, we will see coviewing experiences and platforms launch en masse, by independent developers, retailers, news organizations and political groups.

The YouTube Network

Late 2011, YouTube relaunched with not just a new look, but plans for a new business model. In this new video-centric space, YouTube will display channels that could be of interest to you individually, as well as other curated content. During the next year, expect to see YouTube oer original programming, initially for the gaming and programmer community, oered via the Google TV platform. Internet-connected set-top boxes and the new YouTube approach has the potential to draw away viewers from the traditional networks and over to newer forms of digital content syndication.

Elections Coverage

We are already seeing work done by major broadcasters and news organizations in preparation for the 2012 presidential campaign season. Expect to use your mobile device or laptop to fact-check debates and speeches in real time. Sync your device with live broadcasts to get additional news content from major media brands. Co-viewing experiences that integrate social networks such as Twitter and Facebook will gain widespread use.

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Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

MOBILE Mobile Scanning and OCR

High-end optical character recognition software developer ABBYY shocked many in the tech community when it released a 99-cent iPhone app in 2011. Dubbed TextGrabber, it allows a user to snap a photo, extract the text and then import it into a document that can be edited, copied and even translated. Amazon already lets users take photos of products to search for them on its website, and there will be similar photo and text scanning services meant to support commerce launching in the next few months.

Context-Aware Mobile Apps

With the adoption of the Siri application, iOS 5 mobile phones (Apple only) can now compare location, interests, intentions, schedule, friends, history, likes, dislikes and more to serve content and answers to questions. Siri uses natural language processing, so that a user can simply speak into her phone: nd a dinner reservation for four. In return, Siri will locate a restaurant that the user will probably like, suggest three other friends to invite based on shared calendars, and make the reservation through OpenTable. While Siri has 40 years of DARPA research and the work of several universities (Carnegie Mellon, Stanford) powering it, we do anticipate similar context-aware mobile apps coming to market in 2012.

Mobile Payments

Square, the white, square-shaped credit card swiping reader that plugs into an iPhone, is being used by thousands of small businesses and consumers. Squares Card Case service now lets a user check into a venue with her phone and then pay with a credit or debit card at an iPad-enabled Square Register. Google Wallet allows users to store credit cards and swipe their mobile devices at physical registers. And Silicon Valley startup Naratte is working on its Zoosh product, which uses an ultrasound system on ordinary mobile handsets in order to transmit payments. We expect to see more mobile payments in 2012, if not fewer leather wallets.

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Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

SOCIAL Social Curation

As our access to information increases, so does the amount of time we must spend sifting through it. In 2012, we will rely more and more on our friends, colleagues and social inuencers to curate the information around us. Whether its Liking a news article posted to Facebook, retweeting a restaurant recommendation on OpenTable or leaving extensive product comments on Amazon, we will value the comments left by the people we know and trust -verses the big media brands on which we once relied.

Social Messengers

Social networks and handset manufacturers have started to provide P2P messaging services that dont rely on a network carrier. Facebook Messenger works on any handset and allows users or user groups to send messages directly to mobile devices for free, without using email or text messaging. Similarly, the BlackBerry Messenger service allows users to chat within instant message apps as well as share calendars, location, lists and other information between individuals or small groups. Because social messaging services are currently free or available at a lower cost than standard text messaging rates, we expect to see them used signicantly by youth and in underdeveloped countries in 2012.

Social Indexing

In 2012, the number of friends you have on Facebook wont matter as much as your social index score. A number of companies are trying to draw correlations between the people in your social networks, their interests and their propensity to amplify a message/ make a purchase/ start a torrent of complaints. Klout launched a scoring mechanism and partnered with brands to reach inuential social network personalities. Rapportive lets Gmail users learn about their contacts, from where they work to where theyre currently eating lunch, right from their inboxes.

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Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

ENTERPRISE The Cloud

Whether youre listening to music via Spotify, streaming movies from Hulu, sharing documents between coworkers on Dropbox or just syncing multiple devices in order to read email, youre accessing whats referred to as the cloud. Previously, the cloud was reserved for large, enterprise companies with multiple oces or huge websites. Consumers will nd increasing access to the cloud, and as a result may nd themselves less tethered to big, clunky personal computers.

AUTHENTICITY Digital Identity Authentication

When Google launched its new social network Plus, it made headlines for requiring users to create accounts with their real names and identities. At the time, Google argued that people behave better when they use their real names -- it even went so far as to call Plus not a social network, but a digital identity service. Some are now questioning how and when Google would be using our digital identities. Outside of social media, police departments in the U.S. have started using MORIS, which snaps on to an iPhone and enables ocers to scan the irises of alleged criminals. In Brazil, police oers are starting to t glasses with biometric cameras which can scan 46,000 data points on a face and query a criminal database in real-time. Siri, an application acquired by Apple for the iPhone, can recognize individual voices and infer contextual information based on the user. In 2012, our ngerprints may not matter nearly as much as our eyes, face and usernames.

Authenticity Tools for Photos

On Flickr, Facebook, or other personal photo sharing sites, the veracity of a photo may not be of utmost importance, but now that news sites frequently run images snapped by citizens, its becoming critical to be able to verify authenticity. Camera makers will be inputting capabilities that allow photographers to indicate that a photo has not been manipulated. News organizations and photo editors will look for these indicators before sending an image on a viral run through the web.

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Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011

Key Company Info

Webbmedia Group launched January 2006. Weve worked with Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, foundations, media organizations, governments, universities and tech startups worldwide. We oer strategy and training services. Webbmedia Group sta are uent in Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French and English. All of our research, client work and training is personalized for each individual group.

Contact Us
Site: http://www.webbmediagroup.com Tel: (267) 342.4300 Email: info@webbmediagroup.com Twitter: @webbmediagroup

2012 Tech Trends Report Authors

Amy Webb CEO info@webbmediagroup.com (267) 342.4300 Sarah Rich Senior Researcher sarah@webbmediagroup.com (267) 342.4300

About Webbmedia Group

Webbmedia Group, LLC is an international digital strategy consultancy that advises Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, media organizations, law rms, foundations, associations, governments, startups and universities worldwide. The company is directed by Amy Webb, CEO and Principal. Webbmedia Group includes specialists and experts in technology trends, mobile, tablets, technology/ law, gaming, social media, SEO/metrics, digital media business development, product development and digital media training. Headquartered in Baltimore, Webbmedia Group has team members in more than a dozen cities, including Miami, NYC and Kyiv (Ukraine). We also partner with BYO Consulting and iStrategy, community engagement rms that specialize in gaming and high-prole participatory events. Our virtualized oce and distributed platform allows Webbmedia Group to draw on a wide variety of disciplines to serve our worldwide client base. Members of our sta are uent in Spanish, Russian, Japanese, French and English.

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Webbmedia Knowledge Base: 2012 Trends

2011 Webbmedia Group, LLC http://www.webbmediagroup.com

Updated 12.15.2011