Last year at this time I posted about 4 trends I thought would develop over the course of 2006:
- Wide acceptance of real-time and mobile access to information (RSS)
- Easier integration of internal and external information
- Knowledge Management returns - social software makes it happen
- Internet search expands to many different flavors
None of these were radical predictions but the way they are playing out is interesting:
RSS adoption has not yet gotten to critical mass. This is great technology that to me remains underutilized. Some innovative mobile services were released this year, but I thought there would be much more progress. Maybe in 2007.
Customers still face issues with the integration of internal and external information inside their organizations. We see this across many of our financial services and professional services clients. Legacy databases require scarce technology resources to mix and merge with external content. This looks like it will be a slow go for awhile.
Knowledge Management did return - Jotspot's acquisition by Google validated the space and SocialText made a tremendous amount of progress. Many more companies we speak to are using social software tools to share information within the organization.
Although Google owns the internet search market, they're not just sitting around. New flavors of search pop up every day as Google Custom Search engines are being used. And Microsoft, Ask and number of newer firms such as Hakia are trying to break Google's grip with a new spin on search.
I'll post thoughts on 2007 soon.
Comments