時尚雙語:年互聯網會變成什麼模樣？

It's time for our annual predictions post, in which the ReadWriteWeb authors look forward to what 2009 might bring in the world of Web technology and new media.

Looking back at our 2008 Web predictions, we got some of them right! "The big Internet companies will [embrace] open standards" (Google,Yahoo and others did this); "Mobile web usage will be a big story in 2008" (check!); "Web Services platforms will be a fierce battleground" (Microsoft Azure and Google App Engine were released and AWS grew). We also got some wrong, including most of our acquisition picks! Digg, Twitter, Zoho, Tumblr - all remain independent. Not to be deterred, we've made new acquisition predictions for '09... although the names will be familiar ;-)

So check out our predictions for '09 and please contribute your own in the comments.

Richard MacManus

1. iTunes adds social networking features; but it's still a closed development system.
2. Facebook signs up to OpenSocial; whether or not this happens, there's no doubt that Google will continue to collect big name supporters for the various open standards initiatives which it has started in the last couple of years.
3. Yahoo sells to a big media company, but it won't be Microsoft; Yahoo getting bought is a big call and I hope I'm wrong about it - but e.g. I could see the likes of Rupert Murdoch swooping in if things get much worse for the former dot com high flyer.
4. Microsoft releases a cool online version of Office, but then Google releases an amazing new version of Google Docs; Microsoft promised the first bit at PDC '08, but when that launches I forsee it being trumped soon after by Google releasing a more powerful version of its browser-based Google Docs. One that is comparable in user experience (but not features, because that is unnecessary) to MS Word. This new version of Google Docs may be limited to Chrome at first, but it will get a lot of attention and scare the bejeebers out of Redmond.
5. Health web apps start getting attention from mainstream people and media; big breathless profiles from the likes of CNN, Time magazine, etc. Unfortunately health system red tape remains a tangly mess, for another year.
6. Apps that do filtering, inferring and recommendation have a great year; several will release plug-ins for Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook and other 'sipping from the firehose' apps.
7. The usual suspects will remain unacquired in '09: Digg, Twitter, Technorati. The one that does get bought is FriendFeed - by Google probably, given that it was created by ex-Googlers.
8. Media properties prominently experiment with different and innovative types of online advertising; in other words the move beyond CPM starts to actually happen, due to the down economy, after years of CPA type predictions. Related, a stunning new metric will emerge that accurately determines the success of media properties beyond mere page views (ok that one's wishful thinking maybe!).

Marshall Kirkpatrick

1. Lifestreams will continue to evolve; From the explosion of the newsfeed-powered Facebook to the experimental polling technology of FriendFeed, 2008 was a big year for the "lifestream" - the technology of aggregating data from all your activities on different social networks around the web. No one summed it up better than Mark Krynsky in his Lifestream Blog post The Year in Lifestreaming for 2008. In 2009, I'll be watching the parties above, but also MovableType's Motion, social media ping server Gnip, Strands on the iPhone and Chris Messina and friends' new working group on Activity Streams.
2. Facebook will continue to surprise; I love to hate Facebook, but Mark Zuckerberg and company keep bringing me back to a state essed. I wish open standards ruled the world, but Facebook Connect is so compelling that it can't be ignored. I'd like to see Data Portability prioritized a touch above full-blown privacy, but Facebook's relatively tame version of portability is getting real traction while others are stuck in the land of promises and proofs of concept.
3. Big companies will have incentive to give OpenID more support because of Facebook's domination; Support has been relatively tepid in the past. When you're winning, open standards aren't in your interest. When you aren't, they become much more appealing. MySpace, AOL, Yahoo - all have made meaningful moves to support OpenID before, but now that Facebook is clearly dominating them all, I expect to see these companies make bigger moves towards OpenID and other standards.
4. Have cake and eat it too solutions will emerge as a strong option; Have you seenJanRain's RPX plug-in? It lets users log in to a website using OpenID or proprietary methods, like Facebook Connect, through the same interface. It's really pretty, too. There are other examples of this kind of paradigm, but I expect to see them proliferate in the coming year.
5. One or two interface developments will blow us away; The iPhone inspired countless people about user interfaces, unlike anything else has in a long time. Somebody's going to blow our minds again. Information overload alone demands radical innovation, and it's in the works all around the world. Maybe it will be Mozilla, maybe it will be in gaming, perhaps in Adobe AIR, or it could be in Microsoft's Silverlight. May it not be a brain implant.

Sarah Perez

1. Twitter announces they have a plan to make money. They do.
2. New iPhone is released with video recording capabilities.
3. Facebook Connect becomes new de facto way to login to web sites.
4. Google Reader gets themes.
5. Digg still not acquired by anyone.
6. New real-time web app launches that integrates Twitter, FriendFeed & more in ways we never could have imagined.
7. Out of work journalists band together and create some killer blogs.
8. Google Chrome adds of them is a Google plugin that lets you integrate Google Mail, Reader, & other Google products/services right into the browser.
9. Netbooks stay lighter, faster, thinner, but thanks to variable pricing from manufacturers, line between notebooks and netbooks blurs.
10. Google backlash begins.
11. Apple backlash does not.
12. New iPods with VOIP app built-in. AT&T concerned.
13. Professional twitterer becomes a real job.

Bernard Lunn

1. VCs jump onto the SAAS bandwagon, but most ventures don't need the cash.
2. More Indian start-ups go global with price-smashing strategy.
3. 2009 will be like 2002 for raising money or exiting.
4. P2P shows value for reducing cost of server farms.
5. Consumer and regulatory backlash make online privacy into a key differentiator for major players.

Frederic Lardinois

1. Digg still won't be bought.
2. Twitter will start to embed advertising into its users streams as it slowly becomes mainstream.
3. Google will finally offer a comprehensive online storage solution and some kind of travel product.
4. Lifestreaming apps like FriendFeed will remain niche products that only serve the early adopter market.
5. Streaming web video to the living room will go mainstream.
6. If Apple finally enables its push server, mobile social networks and geolocation enabled apps will become a major topic next year.

Lidija Davis

1. Google loses goodwill, Yahoo gains.
2. Microsoft resurrects WebTV after buying out Netflix.
3. Mixx concentrates on usability and starts gaining ground on Digg.
4. Facebook has one security incident too many, leading to a decline in popularity.
5. The value of having a unified system for data portability and single sign-in services becomes unmistakable after a significant privacy breach.

Sean Ammirati

1. Twitter will be acquired (probably by Facebook--but multiple suitors will compete for the deal).
2. Due to new leadership and a slow economy that has people more focused on their professional network, LinkedIn will grow in the public's consciousness and more importantly grow their revenue dramatically.
3. Exciting new open source projects will emerge and grow due to a growing number of un/under employed engineers.
4. Unfortunately, Facebook Connect authentication will become dominant method for authentication on the web (while this is my prediction, I'm still rooting for a more open solution).
5. Microsoft will launch a competing platform with Apple's App Store. The reaction from the market will be underwhelming.

Alex Iskold

1. Twitter is going to continue to grow and eventually get acquired, while Facebook is going to see further decline.
2. Amazon will further strengthen its position in the cloud computing market, by launching more of its Web Services and gaining more clients for existing ones.
3. More contextual browsing technologies will hit the market powered by improved top-down semantic recognition engines.
4. The browser wars will further heat up, with Google throwing marketing dollars and distribution deals behind Chrome.

Rick Turoczy

1. With the economy continuing to tank, Microsoft will double-down on its Facebook investment, garnering more control of the company - and more access to the data being gathered through Facebook Connect.
2. Google will finally solve the issues that have prevented its adoption of OpenID logins for all Google services. That, combined with EAUT, will make Gmail accounts the de facto login credential on the Web.
3. One of the major gaming platform companies - Nintendo, Sega, Sony - will begin acquiring small iPhone development shops in an effort to translate titles to the iPhone format and to corner the market on iPhone gaming.
4. Under pressure from iPhone, Android, Symbian, and RIM; Windows Mobile will attempt to reinvent itself. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it will be about as successful as Vista and the Zune.
5. eBay - the Yahoo! of 2009 - oscillates between break-up and acquisition. After a great deal of drama, it will eventually be acquired by Amazon and incorporated into its seller storefront offering.

There you have it, the picks of the ReadWriteWeb team; what about your predictions? Let us know in the comments, so we can check who among us all has gloating rights at the end of 2009.

回顧2008互聯網預測，讀寫網猜對的有：大公司將採取開放標準（Google、雅虎和其他幾家大公司）；手機網絡應用將在2008年大放光芒；網絡服務平臺成爲激烈的戰場（微軟發佈Azure，Google發佈網絡應用引擎『App Engine』，亞馬遜網絡服務平臺『AWS』持續壯大）。讀寫網也有猜錯的地方，大部分有關收購的猜測都錯了。Digg, Twitter, Zoho, Tumblr依然沒有被收購。

以下是讀寫網2009年的互聯網預測：

Richard MacManus

1. iTunes增加社交網絡功能。

2. Facebook 加入OpenSocial。

3. Yahoo被一家大媒體公司收購，但不是微軟。

4. Microsoft推出酷味十足的在線版辦公軟件，但是Google會發布令人驚豔的新版本Google文檔。

5. 健康衛生網絡應用將受到主流媒體和大衆的關注。

6. 具有過濾、推斷和推薦功能的網絡應用將獲得大豐收。

7. Digg，Twitter， Technorati仍然不會被收購。但是Google可能收購FriendFeed。

8. 媒體公司的在線廣告將出現更多新形式。

Marshall Kirkpatrick

1. 生活流（如FriendFeed、Twitter等）繼續進化。

2. Facebook持續創新。

3. 由於Facebook的統治地位，其它大公司將會給予OpenID更多支持。

4. “魚和熊掌兼得”的解決方案將是一個不錯的選擇。比如允許用戶通過OpenID等方式登錄其它網站。

5. 一兩個界面開發項目將再次讓我們爲之瘋狂。iPhone激發了無數人對用戶界面的靈感。下一個讓人大吃一驚的用戶界面有可能出現在Mozilla，也有可能出現在遊戲領域，或者Adobe AIR，或者微軟的Silverlight。

Sarah Perez

1. Twitter宣佈盈利計劃，並且取得成功。

2. 新iPhone增加錄像功能。

3. Facebook Connect成爲登錄網站的新方式。

4. Google閱讀器可以選擇主題背景。

5. Digg不會被收購。

6. 新的即時網絡應用以前所未有的方式整合Twitter， FriendFeed 及其它服務。

7. 失業記者聯合在一起，成立一些殺手級博客。

8. Google Chrome瀏覽器支持插件。

9. 上網本（Netbook）持續升溫，和筆記本之間的界限越來越模糊。

10. 反Google勢力形成氣候。

11. 反蘋果勢力不成氣候。

12. 新的iPod具有網絡電話插件，AT&T擔憂。

13. 職業推手（twitterer）成爲新興職業。

Bernard Lunn

1. 風險投資對軟件即服務（SAAS）趨之若鶩，但是大部分公司不缺錢。

2. 更多印度初創公司通過低成本戰略走向國際。

3. 從融資和倒閉方面看，2009類似於2002。

4. P2P由於可以降低服務器站（server farm）的成本而凸顯價值。

5. 用戶和管制反對讓在線隱私成爲大公司之間的分水嶺。

Frederic Lardinois

1. Digg不會被收購。

2. Twitter漸入主流，並在用戶消息中嵌入廣告。

3. Google推出全面的在線存儲服務，以及一個類似旅遊產品的服務。

4. 像FriendFeed一樣的生活流產品仍然只是服務於早期用戶市場的利基產品。

5. 起居室網絡視頻直播步入主流。

6. 如果蘋果推出推送服務器（push server），手機社交網絡和定位產品將大行其道。

Lidija Davis

1. Google失去信譽，雅虎贏得信譽。

2. 微軟在收購Netflix之後重振WebTV。

3. Mixx專注於易用性，並開始趕超Digg。

4. Facebook出現一次安全事件，導致大量用戶流失。

5. 具備數據便攜性和唯一登錄服務的統一系統將凸顯價值。

Sean Ammirati

1. Twitter將被收購，買家是Facebook，也可能是其他公司。

2. LinkedIn被大衆認知，收入大增。

3. 新的開源項目將出現並增長。

4. Facebook Connect授權成爲訪問網絡主要的授權方式。

5. 微軟推出平臺與蘋果商店競爭。市場反應平平。

Alex Iskold

1. Twitter持續增長並被收購， Facebook進一步衰退。

2. 亞馬遜在雲計算市場增長迅速。

3. 出現更多語境瀏覽（contextual browsing）技術。『注1』

4. 瀏覽器大戰愈演愈烈。Google在Chrome上大耍美刀。

Rick Turoczy

1. 微軟對Facebook的投資加倍。

2. Google所有產品都解決OpenID登錄問題。Gmail賬戶成爲登錄網絡的憑證。

3. 大型遊戲公司開始收購小型iPhone開發公司，開發的遊戲轉化爲支持iPhone的格式。

4. 面對來自iPhone，Android，Symbian，以及RIM的壓力，Windows Mobile不得不洗心革面，不幸的是其命運和Vista以及Zune相差無幾。

5. eBay成爲2009年的雅虎，要麼倒閉，要麼被收購。

註釋1：有關語境瀏覽（contextual browsing）。
目前國內對語境網的介紹非常少，中文資料幾乎爲零。通過Google查詢，個人覺得contextual翻譯成“語境”比翻譯成“文脈”更能體現其含義。以下是綜合Google搜索結果編譯的內容，供大家參考。
什麼是語境網（Contextual Web）?

以前大部分網站只是由一些數據和HTML網頁組成，根本算不上什麼軟件。你只能用瀏覽器這個軟件開查看這些元素。但問題在於瀏覽器不知道網頁包含什麼內容，也不知道用戶在做什麼。因爲它無法推斷上下文，也無法幫助你得到相關信息。

而語境網則截然不同。因爲它明白用戶在做什麼。網頁信息和用戶的使用數據構成了語境（或稱之爲上下文）。所以文脈瀏覽技術有可能和傳統搜索形成競爭，因爲它可以進行迂迴搜索（bypass search）。

文脈網的關鍵屬性

當瀏覽器和網站能夠識別用戶行爲的時候就可以稱之爲文脈網。在文脈網內選擇更少，含義更多，不需要一直用Google搜索，只要Google一次，然後其它的信息會根據上下文自動提交給我們。

關鍵屬性：

* 相關性：更好地瞭解用戶語境，內容相關性更好。
* 快速搜索: 語境快速搜索減少了模糊搜索。
* 個性化： 語境基於用戶意圖和瀏覽歷史。
* 再混合： 可以立刻從網上得到相關信息。

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