2006 Web Technology Trends
It's December already and so it's about that time to reflect on what has happened in Web Technology during 2006 - and ponder what 2007 may bring. Over the next few weeks Read/WriteWeb is going to publish some in-depth posts analyzing the trends and new products we've seen in 2006, as well as musing on some specific things we'll probably see in 2007.
To kick this series off, here is an overview of some high level trends from 2006. In our next post, we'll make predictions for 2007. We're also looking for YOUR feedback, to ensure that what we cover over the next few weeks is complete.
I have to thank kiwi journalist Mark Evans for the inspiration for this series. Mark recently had an article published in Management Magazine that outlined Web trends for 2006 and 2007. Mark interviewed me for that article and so this post (and the next) will utilize much of the thinking I did to contribute to Mark's article. Here goes...
2006 Review
- Undoubtedly 2006 has been the year of the social network. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook have been the three outstanding success stories - but also impressive was Bebo (in the UK particularly) and there was strong growth in existing web 2.0 networks like Flickr and del.icio.us. The zenith of this social networking craze was probably Google buying YouTube for $1.65 B.
- RSS continues to inch towards the mainstream - Yahoo integrated it into Y! Mail Beta, Microsoft is utilizing it more (e.g. integrated into IE7), Google came out with Google Base and the GData format (which is based on the RSS variant, ATOM). While 2006 can't be seen as the breakthrough year for RSS in the mainstream, we will probably see RSS bloom in 2007 as a result of the groundwork done in '06 by the big Internet companies. Note that there have been recent murmurs that Yahoo is scaling back RSS, but I think this is a short-term trend only.
- 2006 was also the year that Web 2.0 got overhyped and the term is now generally accepted as just a marketing term, akin to Dot Com. But whatever you call it - I prefer to use the term 'Social Web' or even 'read/write Web' nowadays - this current era of the Web is making a big impact. Mainstream media is taking on board many read/write philosophies. This is evidenced in many ways - e.g. News Corp acquiring MySpace and seeing enormous growth; blogs are now accepted by mainstream media and businesses; etc. Also the overwhelming presence of media people at the 2006 Web 2.0 Summit was evidence that Social Web trends are influencing a broader cross-spectrum of people now.
- In 2006 Amazon came out with some startling new web technologies - Mechanical Turk, S3 (online storage) and EC2. Their push to be a major web services infrastructure platform was one of the more intriguing strategies from an Internet bigco this year.
- On the other big companies... Google dominated the news and buzz this year, Microsoft pushed ahead with its Windows Live strategy (its Web-based suite of products and services), and Yahoo had a steady product year (but ending with organizational issues). Apple continued to dominate the online music market (forcing Microsoft to compete head-on) and has also entered the video space with gusto.
- Lots of bigco partnering. Allow me to quote directly from Mark Evans here, as he captured this trend very nicely: "Ebay and Yahoo have snuggled up together, announcing in May that Yahoo would serve display ads to Ebay’s US users and promote Paypal – Ebay’s payment service – to Yahoo users. In August, Ebay signed Google to serve ads to international Ebay users. A dollar each way, perhaps?"
- 2006 also saw the return of the VC money (see web 2.0 hype above!). Although VC money this time round seems to be much more circumspect and generally lower valuations than in the dot com boom. Indeed an associated trend is that web startups are increasingly going it alone and bootstrapping, thanks to open source technologies (e.g. the LAMP platform) and ability to work anywhere anytime. On the flip side (pardon the pun), it still pays to be located in Silicon Valley - as that is where the key networking and fundraising activity still takes place.
- Localization really matters in Web space - for example TradeMe dominates New Zealand traffic and similar local products often outrank the likes of Yahoo and Google in their local markets. The larger trend here is that cultural and language differences mean that big US companies don't always dominate in international markets. Having said that, there is also a lot of overseas cloning of successful Silicon Valley apps (e.g. digg, flickr). See Read/WriteWeb's continuing coverage of international markets for individual country drill-downs.
- The consumerization of the enterprise has been an emerging trend all year. More and more social web apps are coming into the enterprise (e.g. Skype, IM), and organizations are adopting read/write Web philosophies. Corporate blogging got popular in 2006 and blogs are usually part of the mix now in marketing plans.
- In particular, I've been tracking the trend of Web Office. As well as lots of startup action (Zoho, Zimbra, ThinkFree, et al), late this year saw a flurry of action from Google in this space - Google Apps For Your Domain, the acquisitions of Writely and JotSpot, the launch of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and more. In 2007 a major area of focus will be the increasing competition in office software between Google and Microsoft.
- Widgets (mini web apps) were all the rage this year, culminating in its own conference. Related to this, 'personalized start pages' (live.com, netvibes, pageflakes, etc) ramped up, enabling users to collect their widgets together on the one site.
- Online video was hot, hot, hot this year! There are currently a host of YouTube wannabes on the market. The best chance for success for all these startups vying for attention, is to either come out with a next-generation product that takes online video functionality to the next level and/or target a specific niche market.
- VoIP space showed signs of hotting up. Skype now has a bunch of new competitors, all aiming to disrupt the existing telecoms industry.
- Hybrid web/desktop apps (or as Read/WriteWeb termed it "webified desktop apps") came into play a lot more this year. For example the Times Reader, built using Microsoft WPF technology. Also noteworthy is Adobe's Apollo platform and Laszlo's rich internet apps platform.
- Browser Wars 2.0. Firefox enjoyed strong growth this year and released its 2.0 browser in October. 2006 was also (not coincidentally) the year that Microsoft finally upgraded its Internet Explorer browser, to 7.0.
- From a blog perspective, Techcrunch established itself as the blog at the center of all the web 2.0 action - attracting aspiring startups like moths around a flame. Other tech blogs like Gigaom, VentureBeat and Read/WriteWeb itself, have also experienced excellent growth this year.
- Ajax had strong growth this year and according to some reports is not that far behind Flash now.
- World Internet Penetration is 16% and growing - Asia in particular is ramping up fast! Also noteworthy is that 3/4 of traffic to top websites is international.
Those were the major trends from the Web this year, but there are many other smaller trends. Here is a starter for 10:
- RSS filtering, while not as strong as I expected this year, is still making progress via very small startups. The new Google Reader also had some interesting filtering features. However PubSub carked it.
- The commodization of RSS Readers - e.g. the Pluck Reader shut down.
- P2P traffic continued to grow.
- The WebOS (virtual desktop) was a relatively small market this year, but a lot of startups entered the space.
- Digital Reading market hotted up - Microsoft, Sony and Adobe all released new e-reading products.
- Asian Mobile Web years ahead - while the Mobile Web has a long way to go in places like the US and NZ, in Asia the mobile Web had continued growth in 2006.
- e-learning had strong growth in 2006.
- There was hot competition between blog vendors - e.g. SixApart vs Wordpress
- Innovative distributed portal plays are growing fast - e.g. edgeio, simplyhired.
- ADD MORE IN THE COMMENTS...
As the final bullet point implies, so much more has happened in 2006 than I can hope to cover in one post. So please add other 2006 Web trends to the comments. After all, the only way this list is going to be comprehensive is via the Power of the Many ;-)
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Perhaps this is peanuts compared to your list, but 2006 also seemed to be the year of Digg-clones.
Good review, nothing to add to the list.
My favorite:
'Techcrunch established itself as the blog at the center of all the web 2.0 action - attracting aspiring startups like moths around a flame.'
I am missing Second Life and virtual Worlds in general on this list. Thanks
The dominant Japanese SNS, Mixi, IPO'ed this year above $1 billion US, fwiw. I personally think that's more important than Bebo, who hasn't IPOed, or Facebook, who hasn't found a suitor yet. Mixi is currently "worth" $1.3 B based on their stock price.
http://quote.yahoo.co.jp/q?s=2121.t&d=c&k=c3&a=v&p
=m65,m130,s,e260,e130&t=1y&l=off&z=l&q=c
Sorry, here's an English site with pricing on Mixi:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=2121:JP
Here are a couple points I had in mind:
-Continued growth of 'BitTorrenting'
-Widespread use of APIs, which lead to 'mash-ups'
-Verticals (in search and other areas)
-Wikis and user-contribution
Just my two bits...
Cheers,
Aidan
very detailed list.
wiki should be one of them.
I think following points are also worth mentioning:
1. The libraries went virtual. The bookshelf becomes online where one not only browse the tiltes but also go through the relevant chapters. It involves the likes of big publishers like O'Reilly.
2. Much movement happens in open source space where we see a lot of activities happening in "TheCodeProject" and many
others. To top it all MS is entering in this domain through
Suse distribution with a tieup with Novell.
3. Web 2.0 started evolving to a new 'avatar' where the stress is increasing in accessing web-applications through
mobile handsets.
Newspapers have to reinvent themselves....more than ever. Readers no more rely on Newspapers to get news. "Everything Internet or not", "to go or not to go"...that's their daily headlines.
Webmasters will have to improve their skills in order to follow the trends...
I would add China as a stand-alone subject. Developing for anything that has to do with that market is on another planet. Check alexa.com for most trafficked websites.
I have to second open APIs and mashups--not musically speaking, that's so 2 years ago ;).
I'd also like to throw in a trend from a staffing POV: The User Experience or Interaction Designer. Usability is an emerging buzzword and the need for these types of professionals is growing as we see more rich Internet web applications.
Happy to be a UXD!
Lets not forget about the year of the Mashups. Alot of the social web sites also include API's to allow people with extra time on thier hands to make even better sites than the original.
good list, although some of the comments mentioned some interesting points e.g. Virtual worlds.
We're definitely seeing that investment trend here in Chicago. Venture capital interest is back up, and yet start-ups are less and less inclined to take it. It makes you wonder where all that "new" money is going to go in 2007 if nobody wants it?
-Blogger communities- like BlogHer
-Companies moving to Second Life- yes, this has just been happening, but when mainstream banks open up branches in Second Life, we need to start paying attention
-Podcasting and Videoblogging- entering the mainstream consciousness, and businesses being built around them like Podtech.
I think BitTorrent is totally flying under the radar, especially for being the source of most bits on the internet. Combined with their efforts to go legitimate-- think if they actually license a studio and get a percentage-- and this could be a blowout story of 2007. They would beat Apple to the punch and immediately dominate online video distribution.
There's a lot in between here and there, of course, but they've got an actual technology advantage and a very significant user base that will either take them far or make them a very expensive purchase.
I think 2007 will bring rich web apps using vector graphics (VML/SVG)+AJAX to the forefront. The integration of these graphics with other types of content (text, media, RSS, gadgets etc.) will allow the creation of apps that could provide web based collaborative Powerpoint, Paint, mashups and even easy web page creators. The technology will be a strong alternative to Flash.
Good review.
It was missing one rising star: JQuery. It's still a newborn, but has been gaining tremendous support from developers.
I also second the nomination of Wiki's being on the list.
There was a lot of movement in the mobile space even in the US. Not quite "Mobile 2.0", but with Opera Mini, Google Maps Mobile, and a large number of mobile sites/games, I certainly think it's a trend.
2006 was the year that online real estate really came into its own. I'd nominate Zillow to be part of that list for sure.
what about instant messaging
These are all excellent comments. Definitely mashups and virtual worlds need to be added to the list. As do Podcasting and Videoblogging (the former was more '2005'). Wikis are popular in the comments - duly noted.
Thanks all for the additions - keep 'em coming!
Great list, congratulations. You forgot no category in the space. I will refer to your list in the BizTech Blog on our website wwww.schumacherpartners.net. We are a boutique business technology consultancy, based in Sydney, Australia.
I also noticed that blogging networks like b5media started to be noticed by venture capitalists who invested in them late this year. More of them are bound to startup and serve different niches better than a newspaper could. The aggregation of blogs is an easy way to package content that can then be delivered through mobile, rss, etc.
Vertical Search is also gaining ground fast with services such as google's local and co-op searches.
Excellent 2006 breakdown. I definately think you have captured everything.
IDNs I think were also a big thing for '06 and seem promising for '07. With the release of Internet Explorer 7 and people slowly upgrading, traffic has noticeably risen. I think IDNs def. deserve a spot on the list.