clipped from: www.readwriteweb.com - Widgets (mini web apps) were all the rage this year, culminating in its own conference. Related to this, 'personalized start pages' (live.com, netvibes, pageflakes, etc) ramped up, enabling users to collect their widgets together on the one site.
- Online video was hot, hot, hot this year! There are currently a host of YouTube wannabes on the market. The best chance for success for all these startups vying for attention, is to either come out with a next-generation product that takes online video functionality to the next level and/or target a specific niche market.
- 2006 was also the year that Web 2.0 got overhyped and the term is now generally accepted as just a marketing term, akin to Dot Com. But whatever you call it - I prefer to use the term 'Social Web' or even 'read/write Web' nowadays - this current era of the Web is making a big impact. Mainstream media is taking on board many read/write philosophies. This is evidenced in many ways - e.g. News Corp acquiring MySpace and seeing enormous growth; blogs are now accepted by mainstream media and businesses; etc. Also the overwhelming presence of media people at the 2006 Web 2.0 Summit was evidence that Social Web trends are influencing a broader cross-spectrum of people now.
- Undoubtedly 2006 has been the year of the social network. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook have been the three outstanding success stories - but also impressive was Bebo (in the UK particularly) and there was strong growth in existing web 2.0 networks like Flickr and del.icio.us. The zenith of this social networking craze was probably Google buying YouTube for $1.65 B.
- Ajax had strong growth this year and according to some reports is not that far behind Flash now.