We still don’t have flying cars or personal jet propulsion packs, but an online revolution is taking place right before our very eyes. Like most revolutions, it has been a growing movement led by the technology gurus who have seen the future and are staking their claim in the new web space.
With the rapid advances and evolutions taking place online, it’s a very real possibility that some business owners will discover they’ve been caught taking a Sunday drive in the slow lane of the information super highway.
If you’re scratching your head and wondering just how your business can benefit from this new technology, you are not alone. So sit back, relax, grab a coffee, and we’ll help make sense out of the 2010 web and how your business can be prepared for the next decade.
Since the early 90s, groups of individuals have embraced new web technologies. These trends have spread virally, and once there is a critical mass of online users, the business applications soon become apparent. After all, where there are eyeballs, there’s a marketing opportunity. Blogging is the perfect example of a web activity that started out as a personal endeavour but is now also used as a marketing tool. And now we have ‘micro blogging’ sites like Twitter (www.twitter.com) which have reached the point where marketing consultants are telling businesses to start Twittering (and from our experience it does generate new traffic).
So, then, just what does make up the web in 2010. Leading technology blogger Robert Scoble (http://scobleizer.com/) has recently explored this subject. Here are just a few of the trends:
- It is real time communication, and you can see what is happening online right now. Facebook and Twitter are examples of this technology, with major worldwide events being Twittered in real time before even the major news networks can pick them up.
- It’s mobile – we’re taking the web with us everywhere we go, thanks to mobile devices like the iphone.
- It’s more social than ever before, with people having more conversations online, even with the companies they do business with.
- It’s smart and getting smarter. Robert lists http://www.wolframalpha.com/ as an example. This website has the goal to ‘make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone’.
So what does this mean for you as a business owner? We suggest that you do your homework and choose a website platform that can take full advantage of some of these new trends.
So here’s a 2010 web functionality check list for your business:
- Have an RSS feed on your website so your content can be subscribed to and other web sites can syndicate your content on their site
- Have a blog that is integrated into your website
- Create a Facebook page or a Facebook group
- Have your blog posts automatically published to your Facebook page
- Be able to import your images from Facebook into your website
- Get a Twitter account
- Have your blog posts automatically published to your Twitter account
- Connect your Flickr images account with your website
If you’d like to get a 2010-ready website, give us a call on 03 366 3340 or email info@tmlwebdesign.co.nz.
