Website Magazine spoke with many industry thought-leaders for the 2010 January cover story on Web trends. The article provides an in-depth and comprehensive look at what Web professionals can expect from 2010. However, because of the number of interviews performed for this article, not all projections fit within the printed pages of the issue. Below are more Web trends those in the industry say we should expect in 2010.
Analytics
In the main article, Avinash Kaushik, chief education officer for MarketMotive expressed passion in the amount of free tools available that are increasingly providing more detailed information. Richard Zwicky, president and founder, Enquisite Inc. also sees analytics becoming more specialized in 2010.
"Analytics started as reporting for webmasters to determine if the website was working properly. It grew for people to understand the paid marketplace and ROI on paid search. Now it's in specialized areas like social media," Zwicky says. "People are trying to understand the values in the different channels which we weren't able to do in the past."
In addition, local search analytics is going to grow in 2010, Zwicky says. "People are buzzing about social but don't forget about local. People are searching via handheld devices. It changes how people will search and as a business, you need to understand that. So it will be a trend in analytics - be able to understand more interfaces with the web."
Charles Wiedenhoft, director of business planning and optimization of Red Door Interactive says that 2010 analytics trends will change personnel positions. "At Red Door, we created a new position that is assigned a number of accounts. And they are included in all meetings whether branding or quarterly reviews, in-depth competitor [analysis] and looking at campaign data to determine what message works best. They are also responsible for making sure business goals are defined," Wiedenhoft says. "They make sure analytics are completed properly and create insights from that information. They are able to do that because they are included in every step along the way."
Ad Networks
"There is going to be consolidation in the industry. For an average ad, there are too many [networks] to contend with. Basically you have big ones and hundreds of small ones. The exit strategy of every small network is to be acquired someday so during the course of 2010, there will be buyers looking for sellers and sellers looking for buyers," says David Szetela, owner and CEO, Clix Marketing.
"Some of the ad networks will become more specialized. If I'm an advertiser looking to reach male teenagers, then I'll use the big networks and their tools to find sites where male teenagers hang out, and place ads there," Szetela says. "But if there is a network that is smaller and focuses on male teenagers [then I'll go there]. It's a no brainer buy."
In addition, Szetela sees self-serve networks growing in demand in 2010. "There are obvious advantages to self serve. Its easy [placemen t] can take place any day or night. Some of the second tier ad networks will provide a self-serve interface to make it easier for advertiser and ad network," he adds.
Sandra Ahn, senior strategist for Red Door Interactive says that 2010 is all about combining tactics and being able to move on if something isn't working. "You have to combine all tactics like search, paid search, e-mail and social. It's hitting customers on all sides of the sales cycle and making them evangelists of your brand," she says.
"Overall in 2009, people were taking budgets from offline to online tactics to where things are more measurable and cost is lower. And that will continue to happen in 2010," Ahn adds.
Ahn says she will continue to focus on leveraging social opportunities in 2010, but only if it's working. "[You have to] keep a close eye on campaigns and move on if something isn't working. You have to test creatives. A lot of people are trying to advertise on social media sites because there is so much inventory there but it doesn't mean it's going to work."
Social Media
Michael Trigg, vice president of marketing for hi5 sees the emergence of direct user payments through virtual currencies as one of the top three social media trends in 2010. "You'll see micro-transactions, virtual gifts, payments in games," Trigg adds. "That model has been prevalent in Asia and will be popular everywhere else."
The other two major social media trends in 2010, according to Trigg will be entertainment instead of communication, and high-fidelity user experiences. "Social networking version one was about communication and connections. We are now seeing development of social sites as entertainment. For example, we launched a gaming portal," Trigg says. "We're also going to move beyond texts and images into video and animation - multimedia."
Reseller Hosting and Domains
Steve Holford, CMO for Fasthosts Internet predicts two major trends in this niche of the Web: high-end solutions becoming mainstream, and off-site hosting solutions. "I think we will see more resellers become a full-service solution provider so they can maximize customer relationships as much as possible. The more they can offer established customers, the better their reputation will be and in turn, the easier it will be to grow their revenue stream," he says.
"Virtualization and off-site hosted solutions are going to be significant in 2010.There will be more of a trend for businesses, particularly small businesses, that are willing to outsource some of their IT solutions to providers," Holford adds. "This provides an opportunity for resellers to gain customers and increase revenues by providing solutions that meet this demand."
As reported in the December issue of Website Magazine, businesses have increasing opportunities in the domains industry. Elliot Silver, president of Top Notch Domains and Silver Internet Ventures agrees. "High-value keyword names like toys.com and candy.com, which sold this past year, will continue to command high prices. Companies will continue to invest in their own businesses and will acquire high-value keyword domains names for growth and for competitive reasons," Silver says. "With PPC revenue down and not looking like it will increase in the near future, some domain owners will make top domains available for acquisitions that haven't been available in many years."
In addition, the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal will affect the domain industry, according to Silver. "The Microsoft and Yahoo! deal is going to be impactful on domain name values because Microsoft's Bing tends to rank developed keyword domain names higher than Google and Yahoo!," he says. "Right now, impact is minimal because of Bing's relatively low market share. With the deal, Bing will manage search results for Yahoo!, bringing the market share to 30 percent of search from around 8 percent. This is significant."
Do you have other projections for 2010 that you didn't read here or in the article? Add them below.
