A look back at 2006, and what’s ahead for 2007

AIMS member Judy Gombita sent me an e-mail commenting how much she was enjoying the December ‘Rewind ’06, Fast Forward ‘07’ series at onedegree.ca. I completely agree with her that “the interviews have been really valuable and interesting.”

The series started when Ken Schafer (former GM of AIMS Canada and currently VP, Marketing at Tucows) over at Onedegree asked regular contributors to answer the following five questions:

• Rewind - What trends in Internet marketing surprised you in 2006?
• Rewind - Did you add any new tools to your online marketing toolkit in 2006?
• Fast Forward - What do you see as the biggest trends in Internet Marketing in 2007?
• Fast Forward - At the end of 2007, what do you expect we’ll be looking back at as overhyped?
• Fast Forward - Any SPECIFIC predictions for 2007? Buy-outs, bubbles bursting, records broken, reputations toppled, break-out companies?

It has been enlightening to read what some of the industry’s thought leaders have to say when reflecting on 2006 and what might be coming up in the year ahead. You can read the series at www.onedegree.ca/category/five-questions.

How about you? Any thoughts about what you experienced in 2006 or what’s ahead for 2007?

Comments

[Sebastien Provencher]

I've posted my top predictions for 2007 on my blog on Monday. Here's a small taste. BTW, they're all around local search and social media as this is where my interest lies.

1) Atomization: 2007 will see the acceleration of content/functions/applications atomization (decentralization) via the adoption of multiple syndication methods like RSS, XML and APIs.

2) Verticalization: The success of generalist social networks and online video sites in 2006 means that we will see the arrival of a multitude of new specialized players in these two fields.

3) RSS: a clear business model for RSS will emerge.

4) Local will become more social / Social will become more local.

5) Traditional Media will continue to realize that they desperately need to capture eyeballs online, leading to more online acquisitions and/or investments.

6) Long distance & local calls will continue their move towards free.

7) Traditional media will create SEO job positions.

8) Video Monetization: a clear business model will emerge.

9) The proliferation of destination sites without clear business models will lead a lot of them to adopt the B2B business model.