2010

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Predictions abound as the year draws to a close and a new one begins. Reflecting back nearly a decade ago, the state of the Internet and technology was vastly different than it is today. Thanks to the work of thousands of collaborators over the final four decades of the 20th century, today's Internet is a continually expanding worldwide network of computer networks for the transport of myriad types of data.

It can be said that the Internet will be synonymous with social media. The world of individuals will be so steeped in social media that it will become most people’s understanding of the Internet – if you aren’t on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, you aren’t on the Internet. Social networks will pervade all business and personal applications, including all mobile, broadband, and streaming media services. From an enterprise perspective, social networks are the buzz that can spell the difference between success and failure in a reputation-driven online economy.

Forrester sees 2010 as the year social network analysis truly emerges as the new frontier in advanced analytics, supporting mining of behavioral, attitudinal, and other affinities among individuals. Social network analysis thrives on the deepening streams of information—structured and unstructured, user-generated and automated—that emanate from Facebook, Twitter, and other new Web 2.0 communities. Social media will continue to strengthen “bridging” social capital, connecting communities that wouldn’t otherwise be connected and enhancing both.

Cloud computing was very much a buzzword of 2009. According to a PEW report, 69% of Americans have used cloud computing applications. The trend, in which data and applications cease to reside on our desktops and instead exist on servers elsewhere ("the cloud"), makes our data accessible from anywhere and enables collaboration with distributed teams. The cloud movement will see a major leap forward in the first half of 2010 with the launch of "Office Web Apps," free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote released in tandem with Microsoft Office 2010.  2010 will also see the launch of Google's Chrome OS, a free, Web-centric operating system.

The growing market for "smart phones" with mobile Internet technology is predicated to level the playing field.  A smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (PC-mobile handset convergence). PEW research has already uncovered "promising" evidence that smart phones are closing some of the information gaps between upper and middle class and lower-income users.

2010 may also be the year Drupal,  an open source platform, gains wide acceptance.  Drupal is a free and open source Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for many different types of websites, ranging from small personal blogs to Enterprise 2.0 collaboration and knowledge management uses to large corporate and political sites, including whitehouse.gov.

Drupal's scalability, security and continued focus on usability has led to an influx of community web portals, discussion sites, corporate web sites, intranet applications, personal web sites or blogs, aficionado sites, e-commerce applications, resource directories and numerous social networking sites.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but one that has implications for our communities. There is only one other prediction we can make and that is we will continue to work to ensure our communities receive the benefits of technology to enrich their lives.

And of course, people will expect Google and Wikipedia to be at their disposal at all times.