By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-01-04 20:41:40 | Word Count: 664
If you read the tech news this morning, you‘ll find a recurrent theme that is underwriting all of 2010’s successes: people don’t want to have to exist for one minute without having access to the Web anymore.
Two major trends that have been around for a while took off this year: gains in the smart phone market and in the tablet market.
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Many people could rightly say 2010 was the year of Apple. With the release of the iPhone 4, the iTouch 4G, the incredible success of the iPad, Apple’s market share—which was always strong—is enjoying even more penetration than ever. The iPad, which many industry professionals felt began as a solution looking for a problem, took off with consumers who finally saw a use, hence a need for it in their daily lives. The lowered price point of the Kindle may have even helped some people to make the purchase, since they no longer had to choose between a crappy e-reader that can surf the Web and a great e-reader that can’t do anything else.
Google’s Android phone and OS also took off this year as well. Although the Android OS has been around since 2007, it stagnated at only 5% of the market for a couple years. Then with the increasing popularity and consumer demand for smart phones, it took a whopping 25% of the market this year alone. Sure, that’s small change compared to the iPhone, but it’s an incredible leap forward for Google.
And there are no signs the trend is going to slow down. As the price of regular cell phones approach that of smart phones, people are going to keep choosing the ones that give them more capabilities for their money. Tablets will continue to develop as the most convenient portable computer format because it gives people what they most want: the ability to surf the Web anytime, anywhere. In fact, some are even predicting the demise of the notebook. Basically, any device that lets people more conveniently access the internet sold like hotcakes in 2010.
And our lives are becoming ever more wired than any futuristic b-movie predicted. From the way we shop, how we connect with friends and family, to how we research even the simplest things. Gone are the days when we used to ask for directions. Instead, we check our GPS or our GPS App on our smart phones and tablet computers.
What we are seeing is a coming of age of certain technologies that affect our way of living. There is now and will continue to be more differentiation. People ditched print, but now they don’t have to choose between a Kindle and an iPad—or be without their books, magazines and newspapers. People can still have the capabilities of a notebook or desktop, but without the inconvenience of lugging around all the unnecessary features most of them don’t use on a day to day basis, such as word processing.
It is arguable whether online businesses, consumers or technological innovation is leading the way. My guess is it’s probably all three. Each advancement, business idea or desire leads to a push closer to each other in the online global community. We are simultaneously more physically isolated and more connected to other human beings than probably any other time in history.
This has fostered the development of a global culture alongside normal geo-political cultures. There is one place where we all relate to each other in familiar ways. Our online behaviors, from courtesies such as not typing in all caps to the nature of our online relationships with businesses, all have been somewhat standardized across the globe through constant interaction with each other.
This culture requires its own pundits and forecasters—which it has plenty of on many levels. In terms of capitalism, commerce and services, there will continue to be a growing need for expertise in SEO marketing. Let’s label the SEO industry for who they are: the pundits who watch, understand, analyze and put into practice business strategies meant to successfully tap into this global web culture.
