ENN Year in Review 2006: Top ten tech trends

29-12-2006

by Sylvia Leatham

Web 2.0 dominates this year's list of the most notable tech trends.

It's the time of year for reflection, and ENN has compiled its annual list of noteworthy tech themes. (The list omits commentary on the mobile and telecoms sectors; keep an eye out for analysis of these markets elsewhere on the site over Christmas.)

TIME magazine was also in a reflective mood this year, sticking a mirror on the front cover of its "Person of the Year" issue to acknowledge the pervasive influence of Web 2.0 -- or user-generated internet content as it's also known -- such as blogs, social networking and video-sharing sites. We take a look at these and other stories that dominated the tech news headlines in 2006.

The blogging boom continued unabated in 2006, with a November survey from blog tracker Technorati revealing 100,000 new online journals are created every day, with 1.3 million posts blogged daily. Research firm Gartner predicted blogging will reach its zenith during the first half of 2007; however, the number of active blogs will then level out at around 100 million. The research house noted that over 200 million individuals have already given up on the activity. Blogging continued to converge with mainstream media this year, as newspapers and journalists maintained the popularity of their own blogs, some bloggers were invited to cross over to join news organisations and Scoopt Words launched a service whereby bloggers can get paid for the use of their content by news editors. More businesses began to understand the benefits of using blogs as well, seeing the medium as a new way to communicate with customers, raise their firms' profile and keep their websites looking fresh. Meanwhile, US Congressional election candidates were scrutinised just as much in the blogosphere as in the regular press, while here at home the Labour Party hired blogging expert Zack Exley to work on its election campaign. ENN also dipped its toes further into the blogosphere this year, with the launch of Damien Mulley's regular round-up of tech blogs.

But never mind the bloggers; podcasting continued to gain momentum in 2006, and there's no sign of any let-up as commentators predict 2007 will be the year that the audio downloading phenomenon really comes into its own. The relatively new online activity, whereby audio and video files can be downloaded over the internet and played on a suitable device, saw its profile rise early in the year as Ricky Gervais entered the Guinness Book of Records with his audio show, which became the most downloaded podcast ever in February. Here in Ireland, many media outlets embraced the trend, with radio stations in particular taking advantage of the obvious fit with their business model. In December, RTE claimed that it was 'top of the pods' with its publication of 30 podcasts per week. Even here at Electric Towers, ENN hooked up with IT@Cork's Tom Raftery this year, publishing his series of Podleader interviews with prominent figures from the tech world. Elsewhere, businesses began to explore the opportunities for innovative marketing offered by podcasting, with firms such as Kingspan Century producing a series of broadcasts for the construction industry and Salesforce.com creating podcasts specifically for its customers.

One example of the 'user-generated content' phenomenon that took the internet by storm this year was video-sharing site YouTube. Named TIME magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006, the site enjoyed an explosion of popularity thanks to its ease of use and vast quantities of free content, ranging from popular sitcoms and music videos to home-made animated movies and downright bizarre amateur footage. Among the video treats enjoyed here at ENN were the exploding Coke bottles, the net neutrality song from WeAreTheWeb.org, Bollywood breakdancing, and the OK GO, David Hasselhoff and Johnny Logan videos. The site, which was founded in February 2005, was sold to search giant Google late in the year for a staggering USD1.65 billion -- a testament to the site's popularity as well as to Google's optimism, as the web video firm has yet to generate any real revenues. The site has courted some controversy, however, as the issue of copyright ownership threatens to open up a legal can of worms, with some analysts speculating that Google's deep pockets could be targeted by disgruntled content owners. Meanwhile, here in Ireland the site came under attack during the year for its publication of a so-called "happy slapping" video clip in which a teenage girl was viciously assaulted.

Not satisfied with generating and sharing content through blogging, podcasting and video websites, tireless internet users seemed to seize every spare moment of 2006 to communicate with each other via social networking sites. News Corp's MySpace.com, acquired for USD580 million in 2005, became one of the most popular sites on the web, boasting more than 90 million active users. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Bebo became such a hit among young people that many secondary schools banned the site, and at the University of Limerick, students themselves voted to block the site from library PCs during the day, presumably in order to free the computers up for activities such as, um, study and research. Throughout the year rumours circulated about a possible acquisition of Facebook by Yahoo, with documents leaked in December suggesting that the popular social networking site had rejected a USD1 billion offer and that Yahoo had in fact been willing to pay as much as USD1.6 billion for the firm before negotations broke down. Watch this space in 2007.

Purveyors of phishing attacks continued their insidious work with unrelenting gusto in 2006, turning to ever more sophisticated methods of tricking internet users into disclosing their financial details. Here in Ireland, a survey by Behaviour & Attitudes revealed that over 15,000 internet users may have had their identities stolen through such scams. Among the victims who fell foul of phishing this year were a number of Bank of Ireland customers, who between them surrendered EUR160,000 after receiving authentic-looking e-mails purporting to be from their bank. After initially refusing to reinstate the victims' cash, BoI relented on the back of a public outcry and agreed to compensate its customers -- a move criticised by some as a disincentive to users to be vigilant when it comes to online security.

Games consoles were very much in the spotlight in the latter part of the year, as the major players geared up for battle with their next-generation machines. Nintendo made sure it was going to have a mer-Wii Christmas with the launch of its console just in time for the holiday season. Gaming fans across the world went to desperate measures to get their hands on the machines, from paying homeless people to queue at stores overnight to shelling out over the odds on online auction sites. Elsewhere, Sony's coveted PlayStation 3 finally went on release in Japan and then in the US late in the year, while European gaming lovers were told to wait until March 2007, as a shortage of essential components for the console's Blu-ray disk drive reportedly delayed the launch. Meanwhile, Microsoft had a full year of a head-start on rivals by releasing the Xbox 360 in December 2005. With everything to play for, it remains to be seen who will dominate the console market in 2007.

Delays seemed to be one of the themes of 2006, as software giant Microsoft suffered setbacks with its new operating system, Vista. The much-anticipated OS finally went on release to business customers before the end of the year, while consumers were asked to bide their time until January 2007 -- a development that upset many PC makers' plans for holiday season sales. It is as yet unclear whether businesses will embrace the new operating system right away or hold off on upgrading. Research house Gartner predicted that large organisations would approach Vista with caution, taking 12 to 18 months before making the switch. Among the operating system's features are a new user interface and graphics engine, improved search functions, a new media player, tighter security and eco-friendly power management features. In spite of its much-hyped beefier security settings, antivirus experts expect hackers to target Vista as much as they currently do other Microsoft products, once it begins to gain popularity.

Living a virtual reality life definitely hit the mainstream in 2006 with internet-based multiplayer war and role-playing games generating entire alternative communities online. However, Linden Lab's immersive virtual world Second Life really captured the zeitgeist as its graphical representation of an entire universe spawned a proto-economy based on an imaginary currency, the Linden dollar. The mainstream media have been spewing out editorials on the phenomenon on every page from property sections to business and lifestyle supplements. Indeed, Reuters even established a bureau in Second Life to report on the weird world's various happenings. One of the most impressive aspects of the user-created world has been a depiction of Dublin which has become an attractive venue for listening to live music simultaneously transmitted into Second Life. The success of Second Life has also given rise to so-called 'griefers', however, who feel it is their duty to spoil the fun for other Second Lifers. The virtual world was attacked by a mysterious 'grey goo' and Sonic The Hedgehog gold rings in October, and a recent in-world interview with Second Life's first self-proclaimed millionaire, Anshe Chung, was spoiled by two demons who called down a rainstorm of flying penises.

If you thought loud, irritating, rinky-dink ringtones were the height of bad manners, 2006 saw the tentative launch of Mobile TV in Ireland, and already people are complaining about seeing and listening to Eamon Dunphy pontificating from someone's 3G mobile on the bus. Recent analysis from Jupiter Research forecasts that revenues from mobile games and mobile TV will have overtaken those generated by mobile music by 2011. The global mobile entertainment market, which includes adult content, mobile music and TV, will be worth USD77 billion by 2011, according to Jupiter, so be careful of who films you naked on their phone -- truck drivers in China could be paying to watch it. In fact, a survey in Finland, where mobile telly is well-established, found watching TV on your mobile is very popular in bed -- we won't even be able to avoid Fair City under the covers soon! Three Ireland won a DVB-H (digital video broadcast over handheld) trial licence in September, and Vodafone has teamed up with Sky to supply TV news to Irish phones.

September saw the silly season being granted an extension and Web 2.0 getting a chance to show its darkly humorous side when an irate voicemail left by Irish entertainer Twink for her estranged husband became a national phenomenon almost overnight, thanks to the power of user-generated content. The two-minute rant, which seemed to date from much earlier in the year, mysteriously leaked onto the internet in late summer and was swooped upon by bloggers and MySpacers before being picked up by the mainstream media. Dedicated websites, dance remixes, mobile phone ringtones and T-shirts followed. "They can put it on the worldwide web 24/7 for all I care," the pantomime queen told the Sunday Tribune. We're not sure if Twink is doing panto this year, but if she is she's likely to be greeted by choruses of "Zip up your mickey" rather than "He's behind you!"