Review: Website Strategy Predictions 2009

Another year has flown by, and it's about that time when I look back on my website strategy predictions for the year and see which came true and which faded away after their 15 minutes of fame.

Let's have a look-see shall we?

When times are tough the tough get going

Yes, the GFC hit hard, and the whole world felt the pinch in some way or another, but as I predicted, many saw the downturn as an opportunity to find ways to use the internet for new channels of revenue or to help reduce costs. 2009 saw the global internet population surpass 1 billion, Apple now have over 90,000 iphone applications with in excess of 2 billion downloads, social media and web 2.0 are now part of new website development and main stream retail has discovered online.

As websites get serious website providers will grow up or vanish

The increased importance placed on the web and greater return on online investment, coupled with consumer demand for greater interactivity and higher service levels online, saw many of the smaller "brochure" web developers unable to provide support and ongoing innovation go under or facing absorption. A number of rollup plays also went down in flames as the focus on costs and strategic acquisition was the order of the day. Larger players able to provide enterprise level application platforms, with strong thought leadership dedicated R&D, continuous support and speed to market succeeded in dominating the market, and the consolidation of the industry is well underway.

Software in the cloud and Software as a Service

Most conversations involving these phrases earlier in the year would have probably been left to the techies at hand, but the proof of acceptance and understanding of SAAS this year is in the thousands of blogs, webinars and seminars that covered the topic for business owners, project managers and online marketers worldwide, the virtualisation of organisations around the world, and the creation of applications which use the cloud to break down barriers to communication and create operational efficiencies (like the up-and-coming Google Wave, which uses elements of real time collaboration and social media along with conventions from instant messaging and email to create a powerful business tool- set to take the world by storm in 2010). Many startups now provide cost effective applications for a fixed operational charge each month allowing you to focus on your business and not the technology.

Infrastructure and software in the cloud

"Platform as a Service" (PAAS) hasn't taken off just yet, but awareness and adoption are definitely on the rise. Increasingly organisations are looking to web service providers for full service, flexible solutions that allow them to adapt to peaks and troughs in demand for technology and infrastructure seamlessly, allowing them to focus on developing core competencies rather than managing online resources. Many of our new clients this year told us the key driver for adoption was the ability to move from a capital expenditure model to an operating expenditure model. The emergence of cloud based hosting companies and the success of Amazons services were a clear indication that cloud based deployments are here to stay.

Social media and collaboration goes corporate

I saw this one coming a mile away. Every organisation with an online strategy was faced with the decision "to tweet or not to tweet?" this year, with the social media craze has taken over thousands of organisations worldwide. While privacy standards and common rules and regulations are yet to evolve, the smarter organisations protected themselves against the dark side of social media, while others were left red faced.

While I still maintain collaborative tools are the way of the future (insert shameless plug for our collaborative tools, coreDNA Collaboration Projects and coreDNA Collaboration Groups here), acceptance of the technology has been much slower than I anticipated although the release of a number of new tools and the emergence of many new tool providers is bound to broaden the horizons).

Multi-channel websites

Smartphone adoption was through the roof this year (nearly everyone I know owns a 3G capable phone), and the proliferation of mobile websites grew in line with the increased use of mobile devices to research and purchase from organisations. To think that just the start of this year I commented that "very few companies are currently considering mobile websites in their online strategy"! More and more organisations will need to make the move to mobile in order to reach their full potential. Watch this space- the usability and functionality available is just going to get better and better. I think we'll roll this one over to 2010.

Media Platform take 2.0

While Blue Ray didn't make the mark I thought it might, digital TV certainly did, and as of next year the analogue signal will officially be switched off. Media platforms continued to grow in their use throughout 2009 (though there is much more to come) with many game console manufacturers adding value through successful integration with the web and an increase in family-oriented product offerings (like the Wii Fit). Again here 2010 will be another year to watch the development of media platforms in the home.

Stay tuned for my Website Strategy Predictions 2010.

In the meantime, what website strategy predictions did you make this year that came true???