Gary Baker Predictions 20132

Gary Baker

Technology Predictions for 2013

Well, the easiest predictions are to predict the trends that we saw in 2012 will continue in 2013 and for the most part that will be true.  It is easy to predict that we will continue to see:

• Mobility gain more mindshare
• The cloud being used more by even some larger businesses
• Security breaches making headlines
• Publicly available Wi-Fi continue to expand and become more available
• Social media start to mature and be the place people spend the most time online

Yes, all of this will be true and the sky will continue to get darker at night too.

A little deeper look into my crystal ball reveals a few riskier predictions.

• Mobile apps will become more hybrid.  The US will follow Europe’s lead and combine mobile websites using responsive design and HTML5 with mobile app functionality for easier maintainability.
• BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to work and hook it up to the corporate information will gain momentum as the security concerns become adequately addressed.
• Sensing technology will be used in more and unique ways.  Sure Google has a driverless car and there are now refrigerators that sense their content and determine when to replenish, but what’s next?
• Security regulations will become more cross-boarder as more governments cooperate to stop the bad guys.  Unfortunately, the bad guys will continue to get better and more devious.  Look for a real battle this year, but there won’t be a cyber-war, at least not this year.
• Podcasts will become much wider-spread and the downloads will almost double.  This is a testament to the changes in viewing and listening habits of people inundated by information.  We want what we want, when we want it.
• Laptops and tablets are converging into hybrids and convertibles or a combination of the two.  The lines are blurring largely because of the success of the tablets driving by their intuitive touch screen design, Win 8 which really works better on a touch screen, and Google Chromebook which at less than $250 provides a compelling solution for the lower cost segment of the market.
• Social media will see a shakeout with the big sites getting bigger and the small sites without a real niche advantage become marginalized.  Look for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Slide Share, LinkedIn and a few others to start to pull away from the rest because they can monetize their content better.
• Content marketing will really come into its own in 2013.  Companies will start to figure out that content marketing and social media are made for one another, just look at Slide Share.
• Big Data is starting to really become a competitive advantage for the more visionary companies with other companies just starting to figure it out as well.  The tools to abstract, gather, transform and combine internal and external information are becoming mature enough to use affectively.  Combining this information with “insight” provides knowledge.  This is where the industry is heading next.
• Google glasses with heads-up display or less than $100 hit the market last year.  This year they will start to become more that proof-of-concept.  They will be adapted for a few special uses for specific companies in 2013 with more wide-spread uses happening in future years.

I’ve tried to provide a little different view of technology and some interesting predictions for 2013.  Of course, some of these won’t happen the way I think they will.  Can you predict which ones?