mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

Having ‘mobile’ and ‘trends’ in my header asks for a yearly overview of mobile and wireless trends insights for the coming year. You can check here which trends I wrote about last year.

In a poll Richard Mac Manus held amongst Read/Write Web readers last week, on The Biggest Web Trend of 2007, the Mobile Web came out on the third place of coming web trends for 2007. Online Video / Internet TV was voted most popular (though the poll stays open until 31 December), the continued rise of browser-based apps (Ajax, Google, etc) as second. RSS and structured data - my personal favourite, and Rich Internet Apps (Apollo, WPF, etc), respectively on nr. 4 and 5.

Watch the online video trend going mobile in 2007, just check what teenagers do with a PSP these days and how easy it is to get YouTube on the device (see image below). Results 2, 4 and 5 are the logical evolution of web 2.0. Will the Mobile Web finally breakthrough to the masses next year? Having readers putting it upfront in a poll of a popular weblog such as Read/Write Web is a significant indication for more. How about you?

For Richard’s original “2007 Web Predictions” post - one of his most read posts of 2006 btw, he asked me for 10 Mobile Trends for 2007 you can read in that same post. I wrote down 10 mobile trends for 2007 very spontaneously, not having really thought about them before and without having the time to doublethink them through. Reading them over again now, I think it’s actually good to have written down 10 trends spontaneously - try it yourself… so, I invite you to check how good my gut feeling was next year

I’ll repeat them here again for my readers:

1. Flat fees will become more affordable bit by bit.
2. Thus, more user-generated content will become available to the phone; opening the way for mobile users to start using new web/mobile 2.0 services on their phones, such as podcasting, RSS feeds, more user-generated content to upload and use.
3. Big Media Youth Networks going mobile - MySpace, YouTube, MTV and many more players will resolutely go mobile; allowing users to upload pictures, videos and create/consumer content straight from their mobile phones. And to share with friends (including mobile forwarding functionality).
4. Mobile search - the big players will start positioning seriously in the mobile market (watch out for deals with carriers/operators and device manufacturers)
5. Mobile ads - the market is growing at a rapid pace (just watch AdMob’s ad views ticker box daily)
6. QR codes will start to enter retail markets.
7. Mobile image recognition will pop up in mixed marketing campaigns.
8. Cell Phone memory card swapping - to exchange music/video files.
9. Multiple network download hotspots become available in urban zones - enabling ‘on the spot’ mobile download and internet access possibilities via wi-fi/wimax/bluetooth/nfc/etc…. (all build in or available immediately)
10. Rise of ’smart client’ solutions, for convergence of content and application functionality on mobile devices in general.

I think 2006 was a very prosperous year for mobile in general. On a personal level, I got the chance to meet and work with some of the best people around in mobile in Europe and US, we’re just at the beginning of a new era and more prosperity in the mobility sector.

Special kudos to Kelly and Lisa at gotomedia, Russell and Carlo at MobHappy, Oliver at MobileCrunch, Caroline, Andy, Richard, Martin, Dave, Fabien, Stuart, Julia, Josep, Carles, Justin, Francesco and Gabriel, Jari and Micah, Ignacio, Debbie and her team, Peter and José, Markus, and last but not least Darla and all the women working in Mobile.

I wish all my readers and blogging friends an excellent and peaceful 2007!