I’ve heard so many new buzz words this past two days at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.
“Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are going.” - John Naisbitt
So, here’s a recap:
Mobile - The major trend in the consumer market appears to be everything mobile. From location softwares (such as Loopt), to development platforms (Nokia S60)… anything mobile will certainly catch a VC’s attention. Other notables: Tellme, Iphone apps,
Mesh - With access to the content stretching across multi-platforms, multi-devices… there is a great need to connect all these instruments. Microsoft announced their Live Mesh application this week, and gave a short demo at the keynote. Personally, I am suspicious and curious to see how these things will really work together. I totally hate Sync, and I give up trying to connect my phone to my calenders. Maybe I need to try a Blackberry.
Mash - or Mashup, is something that I heard people talk about left and right. There are so many APIs and so many widgets now, that everything Web 2.0 is about combining all these elements together. We see Google Maps mashedup on various sites with variations and new components. That’s probably the prime example. There is just so much to learn in terms of what’s useful and what will improve a site’s “interestingness.”
Social Network - I suppose this is not a new topic. But still, every company is talking about creating new social networks, creating customer facing applications to tie customers-to-customers. Something so interesting can get really dull when you keep hearing it over and over again.
Viral - So, just being social is not enough. Now, everything also needs to be viral. User engagement, user recommendation, and user initiated activities are getting to be a big focus for developers too. How will the next Sheep-throwing app look like? It will be interesting to see what is the next big thing that users will get excited over and spread like wild fire.
Micro-Blog - Twitter, is definitely the star of the 2007/2008 internet scene. Many people are talking about Twitter being the next Google! mm… that’s probably an over-exaggerated evaluation. But, that’s high praises nonetheless. Anyways, I can’t get myself into it. I created a twitter account though, not sure if anybody is interested.
War - So, there seems to be a battle between Facebook and OpenSocial, over developers to create the next killer app for their social networks. Who’ll win? Facebook has the lead, but my bet is on OpenSocial.
So, how do I ride these waves… or horses…
