6 Web Predictions for 2011 by Futurist Ross Dawson

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Ross Dawson is a leading technology futurist, entrepreneur & best selling author. I caught up with Ross Dawson to discover his predictions for the Web in 2011.

Bonus: Download the 33 free templates from Web Marketing That Works by Adam Franklin & Toby Jenkins

Watch this 4:54 minute interview to find out what’s happening on the web in 2011.

Here’s what I discovered from Ross…

What do you see the future of the web being for businesses?

Prediction 1: The web is becoming more and more central for how we find information and therefore products, services & suppliers.

Prediction 2: The other key thing to stem from this is reputation. This decade, the things we do that people like and don’t like (our ‘reputation’) will become aggregated and much more visible. It will be far easier to assess who we want do business with!

Prediction 3: The other fundamental trend is the move towards mobile. We can access all the universe of information; we connect to friends; we look for things in the context of where we are and where we are sitting, using increasingly fantastic devices – not just the ipads of today – wonderful phones, wonderful gadgets. These are some of the fundamental things of how the connected world is impacting business.

What specific trends do you see for 2011?

Prediction 4: If we look at the short term, then ‘cloud services’, which are now pretty well known as services like Salesforce, GoogleDocs and DropBox. These tools will enter the main stream as business tools to be more effective & lower capital costs. These will be fundamental tools for businesses small & large.

Prediction 5: We will also see the rise of Android. Whilst Apple is the darling to many people, Android is equally compelling to many others.

Prediction 6: In the broader context, there’s still the tapping of global talent. ‘Crowdsourcing’ in a whole variety of forms, using platforms to access workers, to aggregate ideas, to run competitions — whilst it isn’t new, will become more and more accepted and well known as ways of doing business.

What can organisations be doing to prepare themselves?

One of the most important things is simply to start and learn by doing. There are some parts of the connected world where you may not need to be involved right now, but if you have to be in there in 2-3 years’ time (which is the reality for every business), you should start doing it now anyway.

And the only real way to learn what works, is get to get in and try things. This is true for your Proctor & Gambles and IBMs as well as your one person organisations.

Thank you Ross! You can follow @RossDawson or visit RossDawsonBlog.com

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Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of Web Marketing That Works. He is an international social media speaker and CEO of Bluewire Media. His blog was Australia’s #1 Business Blog and his podcast was #9 on the top marketing podcasts in Entrepreneur magazine. His work has featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Huffington Post and iTunes. Download the popular Web Strategy Planning Template which has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. His weekly ‘Bluewire News’ email goes out to over 32,000 readers.