2010, the year that brought us the iPad, augmented reality ads, the attack of Groupon and the group buying clones and the rise of location-based social networks, has come to a close. Winners like Apple and Facebook may look upon last year fondly given their dominant respective business performances whereas much of the rest of America may just be breathing a sigh of relief because the fragile fed-fueled economic recovery did not collapse.
Looking ahead to 2011, the general consensus is that the recovery, both on a macroeconomic level and on the advertising industry level, will continue. Whew.
And on the digital front, prognosticators far and wide have made their predictions on what to expect in the year ahead. We’ve gathered up a few of our favorites from across the Web:
Flibboard becomes the breakout news reading app of 2011.
Brands will become more and more like media companies.
More and more people will stream their media from the cloud.
“Social deals” will go mainstream and be a standard part of the marketing mix.
Ecommerce will get more fun than ever.
Tablet mania will hit a fever pitch.
Mobile payment systems will continue to make in-roads in the U.S.
Advertising will embrace social even more.
Facebook will go after Google with an AdSense competitor.
And we will finish off by going out on a limb on our own to predict that:
- Between the rise of video, social and data targeting, a new era of innovation will kick off in display advertising, raising CPMs and, for the first time in a long time, the interest of your average web surfer.
- Lower bill of materials costs in the TV industry and Asian supplier evidence will come together to confirm that Apple is indeed planning to introduce a new age television set, possibly as early as 2012.
- The first self-published e-book only millionaire author will arrive.
- By end of year, Facebook will announce its billionth active member. Yes, billion with a B.
So, what are your digital predictions for 2011?
