Features

Last year, I made predictions for 2005 along with the other InformIT folks. The original list isn’t online anymore, but I posted the 2005 predictions along with what really happened. I batted average. Some on the mark and some way out there.

So continuing the tradition, I wrote up my thoughts for this year and linked to those who did the same. Not too many common themes popped up. Most of us mentioned Web 2.0 and Ajax in some form, but we said different things.

• Web standards will neither gain momentum nor slow down because it’s become an old topic and people want to move on to new topics. Furthermore, sites coming out with standards-based design aren’t as frequent.

• Ajax and Web 2.0 will continue to buzz though they shouldn’t. Ajax has been happening long before it got a name and Web 2.0 is explained here. However, I can’t imagine them being buzzwords for the entire year.

• More asynchronous Web-based applications using XML and Javascript will make news and impress.

• More sites go for simplicity.

• Colors? Every year a designer predicts a color trend. There’s has yet to been an “in” color since “Zeldman orange.” Sites will do what they see works best for their needs.

• Style. I don’t think the last ten years have seen a style in terms of clothing compared to the past as everything in the past comes back in style and then some. Design has reached that same stage in the past six months that we see few “styles” used repeatedly like rounded corners. The only time we see a lot of the same are with blogs and their templates.

• Big text is finally cool! I’m already seeing a trend and a great one at that! I hope it becomes a permanent fixture.

• Designing for mobile devices picks up speed thanks to more phone / PDA hybrids.

• RSS will steadily climb and we’ll see more sites add feeds and more users adopt it, but it won’t be a dramatic change. Still many sites don’t have RSS feeds as I was trying to find feeds having to do with writing.

• More businesses will jump into blogging especially with an influx of books on the topic coming out in ‘06.

• Blog / Web site advertising. GoogleAds has gotten a lot of competition toward the end of 2005 in Yahoo and Chitika. More will enter the arena.

• Podcasting continues growing. Since speaking and listening are faster than typing and reading, podcasting is more convenient especially since people can take it with them in MP3 players. Of course, this does those with hearing disabilities no good.

• Video / vodcasting. See podcasting especially with the video iPod. Expect to see more players coming out with video versions.

I didn’t mention Ruby on Rails because the business world doesn’t even know what it is while it knows about Ajax and Web 2.0. These predictions try to look at the picture of what we’ll see across the Web.

Other folks’ predictions:

• Baekdal.com

• Robin Good

• Anil Dash

• John Battelle

• Conversion Rater

• Cameron Moll

• Andy Budd

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