I wrote this a few weeks ago but never published it. And since this blog helps me keep track of my thoughts, I felt a need to publish it now, albeit a bit late. Tomorrow I'll talk about what's exciting for 2010.
Internet TV finally became a reality
From both a hardware and content perspective, Internet TV truly became a reality in 2009. Wi-fi enabled big screen TV’s hit the market prior to the holidays, and industry experts predict that 50 million people in the U.S. will have Internet-enabled HDTV’s by 2013. As more TV viewers sought content online, they turned to sites such as Hulu.com, which garnered more viewers than Time Warner Cable in 2009. Changes occurred in advertising as well with shows such as such as CSI and The Simpsons garnering higher advertising rates at Web sites than on prime-time TV this year.
Politics went social
Using the Internet as a political tool is not new – in fact the first spam email in 1971 was an anti-war message. But with the inauguration of President Obama in January, we saw social media merge with politics in new and interesting ways. From opening executive branch data on www.data.gov to finding volunteer opportunities on serve.gov to health care reform on Facebook, President Obama and team took social to a new level. On an international front, the Iran elections were so strongly supported on Twitter that the U.S. State Department asked the micro-blogging site to delay taking down the site for service so that communications would not be disrupted during the election protests. Also, in a show of support, some Twitter users changed their location to Tehran to make it difficult for the Iran government to target dissidents.
Twitter got its day in the sun
Three years and many naysayers later, Twitter finally got to say “I told you so” last February when they experienced a 1,382 year-over-year percent increase in users. In October, they surpassed 5 billion tweets. The status update may well be the person of the year for 2009, and Twitter is the site that truly put it on the map (while others, including Facebook, quickly followed suit). Twitter was also integrated into XBOX this years and IBM is evening developing a TV remote that can tweet.
Fans called the shots
Only the Internet could make Susan Boyle a superstar because only the Internet could deliver instant, global and shared access to her very human story, which resonated with people around the world. Those people viewed and passed along her video to the tune of 120 million views on YouTube. Halfway around the world, Michael Jackson’s funeral generated an unprecedented 33% increase in global web traffic. Some experts said it even slowed the Internet. But the story was not only about Michael Jackson, it was about his fans and how they connected with the event, and with each other online.
The search wars reignited
Prior to 2009, it had been a few years since search had anything substantial or exciting to report. But this year, search brought us a few very interesting developments. In May, Wolfram Alfa, the computational search engine, was announced. A month later, Microsoft’s Bing, the “decision engine” launched and performed well, actually tacking market share away from other search leaders. Finally in December, Google launched a number of new features, including real time search, which indexed Twitter and Facebook status, among other content.
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