Technology Trends Report

I made a little research during the past week to get updated with the hottest IT technology trends.I came up with the following short list:

* HTML 5 - is the next big thing, not only on desktops, but also on Cell Phones. Major Companies are already racing with their Beta Browsers, and showing off what they can do. IE9, FF4, Chrome 6, you name it. What this new standard can do is really mind blowing, from html video,audio tags, 2d/3d drawings, geolocation, client storage and database, full duplex communication, javascript api, you name it!

http://slides.html5rocks.com/#slide1

* Cloud Computing - not exactly the newest technology, but is proven that it is here to stay. While software as a service was an introduction to a new era of how we do business, Infrastructure as a service [IaaS] is the logical complement to SaaS. No standards exist yet, but many giants such as Amazon, Force.com, Rackspace are in the lead. Clould Computing not only changes the infrastructure, but also changes platform architecture to ensure highest scalability.

Interested to know how top players scale to serve billions of pages? http://highscalability.com/

* Geo-Location, geolocation, geolocation. The world of Startups has gone crazy about Geolocation! It’s like the keyword to success, allowing businesses to make use of User’s Physical Location. Geo-Location startups such as Foursquare, Gowalla, BrightKite are enjoying a great success. Social Networking Giants are joining, adding the term ‘social’ in Geo-Social, Facebook Places is the latest addition to the pool, with a brand new dimension in providing Online to Offline Services.

http://www.slideshare.net/mmpartee/geolocation-geolocation-geolocation http://mashable.com/2010/08/24/the-state-of-the-geosocial-universe-infographic/

* Social Networking - The Social Factor is key to the success of any online business. Google is now battling to add the social layer to its myriad of applications. Whole new set of million dollar startups evolved around the viral beast provided by facebook. new business categories spawned around it, such as Social Gaming [coming next].
* Social Gaming - Although Facebook did shut all the dollar gates in the face of Social Gaming, there is still a great potential for this Category. Enough to say that Ron Conway - an Angel Investor - has Social Gaming in his Megatrends Investment Guide. Zynga, maker of Farmville, funded with over a half billion dollars in the past 3 years, and still on a roll. Are you ‘social’ game?
* Tablets - it is true that a big war is coming in the tablet industry, with 6 or more platforms competing in the market, providing the users with a new fancy portable touchy experience. RIM is coming to the game with its blackpad, Dell just announced it’s own tablet, IPad is already there backed by 3 million users, Google will make a later entry with its new OS. it is time to pick a side and start making this tablet app before someone else does now!

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/09/11/a-massive-war-is-approaching-as-the-tablet-market-cannot-sustain-six-separate-platforms/

* Android and IPhone Apps

I cannot stress more how clever is the apple’s app store business model, a user won’t mind paying 99 cents for an iphone application, and if you make this killer app that you sell to a 100,000 users, you become an instant success. it must be a lot of competition out there, but ideas never end, do they? if you dont get what i mean, check the double rainbow application.

* Google Instant and the future of SEO - Google Instant is still being understood by the user community, but it is making changes to the concepts of Search Engine Optimization. SEO remains as a key factor in getting more visitors to your websites, web and Mobile.
* XBox Kinect - Microsoft is about to strike in this holiday season with a new breakthrough in the console competition. you are now the controller, with this XBOX 360 addon. With great powers, comes great games. Gaming industry is a multi million dollar business, but still you can have your shot at it while it is still booming, there is some talk about supporting indie developers, yuppieee.

http://www.examiner.com/video-game-news-in-atlanta/xbox-360-kinect-will-support-indie-developers