Independent Thinking Blog

5 Digital Trends to Watch

If Steve Rubel is right, there are some fascinating digital trends to plan for in 2011.

During a recent MarketingProfs Webinar, Rubel highlighted 11 digital trends, including location-based services, thought leadership, and social media schizophrenia (e.g., information overload). From his list, here are five that stand out:

1. Attentionomics, or the concept that it’s not enough to reach people (e.g., eyeballs or numbers)–you have to grab their attention to drive behavior. A couple ways to do this: using visualizations and creating digital embassies within your social networks.

2. Digital curation, which Rubel concisely defined as “separating the art from the junk.” This is a big one for me, because right now we’re focusing on aggregation far more than curation (think paper.li and similar “auto”-curation tools).

3. Integration economy, or the concept that the way we communicate will demand that people collaborate more across an organization. I’ve been talking about shattering silos for a long time, so I hope Rubel’s right about this one.

4. Ubiquitous social computing, or what Rubel said involves “optimizing for mobility, not just mobile.” A couple ways to do this: designing for multiple platforms and thinking about integrating social sharing into your products.

5. Transmedia storytelling, which is the concept that technology is changing the way stories are told (think Avatar, Toy Story). Rubel said that “narrative is no longer a whole,” and that we must think instead about “connecting the dots.”

What stands out for you? And what trends would you add to the list?

Photo by Phillie Casablanca (Flickr).

You May Also Like

The Case for Digital Reciprocity

The Case for Digital Reciprocity

There’s a case for digital reciprocity, but don’t get so wrapped up in who’s sharing what to forget why you’re creating and curating content in the first place.

read more