5 Tech Trends to Get Excited About

Posted on June 14, 2012

Posted by Gerben Meijer in Industry News 0 Comments

Google Classes: The Search of the Future?

On the radio, while driving into work today, the hosts were talking about life without the Internet. How when there was any sort of project they went to the library to do research. Imagine life without Google for students now?

We’ve come since those dark ages, not only do we have faster Internet speeds (not that there was much to compete with) but computers that react to the touch of a finger, imagine explaining that to your great grandmother.

With the continuous innovation it seems that every month a new technology trend is popping up. But where is technology going next? SmartCompany, an organization based in Australia, assembled a team of experts to gaze into the future and find out what technology will look like in 2017.

Find out five of the trends SmartCompany’s experts believe we’ll see develop over the next five years.

No More Desktops

In a world with increasingly lighter and more mobile devices that have the same capabilities of a desktop, is there really still a need for the old clunkers?

James Griffin, co-founder of online reputation management group SR7, says in five years’ time the category may not exist outside of a niche market. “I think the traditional desktop will disappear, and be replaced with essentially a monitor and a keyboard. You’ll have this device where you can plug whatever portable device you’re using, like a smartphone or tablet, into this fixture, and away you go.”

The Search Bar Gets Social

With Bing’s latest commercial taking the search social, it’s obvious to see that any search portal looking to stay alive will be changing their ways. But, before we dive into Griffin’s thoughts, lets open up a google page to search for something. If you notice, right below the bar, it says “X personal results,” if you click there you will see things your friends (social network) have liked, tweeted, Google +, etc. Search going social isn’t a new trend, it just seems to be moving a little more slowly than trend spotters initially forecasted.

After already seeing the minor impact social media has created to increase the sharing capability within your network, it will be interesting to see where it goes.

“Our first port of call for search will no longer be just Google, but Facebook as well, and people will see a huge change in terms of how Facebook search is done.” says Griffin, ”It’ll become that portal of search, and within that delivery of information will be info that has been vetted by our peers. So your news stream and your search options will largely be dependent on who you are friends with. That process is starting now, with Google recently announcing Google + profiles would impact search results. We’re starting to see a deconstruction between social media marketing and how businesses are using it,” Griffin says.

A Shrink in the IT sector?

The IT industry is always changing, but Interactive’s Chris Ride says there may be a few developments over the next few years that cause the industry to shrink, at least in some sectors.

“In the services sector, I think we’re going to see some aggregation. I think people want to deal with local providers, not necessarily overseas controllers. Every small and medium business is going to have an IT director. They need to be managing their cloud provider, handle business processes and the relationship with the IT staff – and all this is different from a chief information officer or chief technology officer.”

The world will run on streaming media

Gone are the days when users are forced into an essential download. Besides desktop apps, what is there to download? Most organizations have already seen the result of how impatient we’ve all become. Many users aren’t even giving a seven second download a chance! What other option do companies have other than to feed users content by making it available for streaming?

Futurist Ross Dawson says this will become the norm. “We’re seeing the rise of the stream that gives us access to whatever we want whenever we need it. Spotify is obviously a big example of this, and it’s doing so well because people can just participate whenever they want. We’re going to see this increase. Video is going to become even more popular, and you see really interesting things happening in this space, things like Spotify and Turntable.fm, one of the more interesting social ventures here.”

Say goodbye to 9-to-5

With the increased amounts of knowledge and innovative technology changing the work environment, one has to ask: what will change next? We already have the ability to work remotely, answer emails with only our phone handy, and connect with costumers from all over the world via video chat. What could possible be to come?

Alan Noble suggests in five years, this will become much more prominent than it is right now.

“The idea of working nine to five, if not gone will be nearly gone (in five years). It’s going to have a profound impact on the way SMEs and SMBs operate too. It’ll change how they reach their customers, and work with their partners as well.”

Want more? Head over to LeadingCompany.com for more tech trends to be on the look out for.

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