While we read over the many “Top of 2009″ and “Top of the Decade” lists, we realized that, hey, we’re a new media firm… we should be coming up with our own list of some sort!
So here it is: our favorite new media tools, as well as some of our predictions for 2010. This is not your parent’s recap!
The RevMSG Top of 2009
1. Twitter - By no means a brand new tool, its influence reached critical mass this year. We hardly need to rehash the details. Remember, though: three years ago, it was a small side project at a company focused on syndicating podcasts. Its rapid growth is a reminder that relying on what was working or what is working is vital but not enough. Successful new media companies are the ones that recognize what’s going to work in the future and figure out how to take advantage. That’s our goal. (Oh, and while we’re here: make sure to follow @revmsg!)
2. Evernote – Digital Post it notes. So simple… sync your ideas from your phone to all of your computers.
3. Dropbox – Cloud computing for the individual! An easy way to keep your files backed up. Sync your files online & across computers. A 2GB account for free: http://rev.ms/dropbox
4. PeopleBrowsr - Search, filter, follow, post and repost messages from several social media accounts at once.
5. What the Hashtag - A sort of Wikipedia for the growing collection of Twitter hashtags. They are tracking over 7000 hashtags making the white-noise of twitter a bit more searchable!
6. The Always-Growing World of Mobile Apps - Every day, we wage the battle in our office between the Droid and the iPhone. And with apps to detect metal or that recognize songs from your humming, the creativity and growth in this area aren’t ending any time soon. It was a fun year! Text your favorite Mobile App recommendation to 738674 (spells REVMSG).
Our Predictions for 2010
1. The way we communicate will continue to shift. Whether people will start actually using Google Wave this year is under intense debate at our HQ, but we all agree on one thing. Twitter started something that other websites and apps will build upon. The way we communicate online, and in general, is rapidly changing. The big question is whether services that combine many different forms of communication (check out threadsy.com), or an entirely new form such as Wave, will be what we are using a year from now. Of course, mobile will play a large role. It increasingly appears that new media tools can’t remain viable if they can’t integrate with our phones.
2. You will become Nostalgic. It’s a new decade and with it comes a chance for our favorites from the past to find a way back into our lives again. Hair bands, jelly bracelets and Unicorn videos never really go out of style.We know this because we all found this year’s Republican Party’s website make-over so amazing. (Who knows, maybe throwback email accounts will become trendy???) Nonetheless, we hope that basic practical tools win the day in 2010 and your orgs new media strategy will no-longer be about the newest social-networking rage.. but providing a better user experience- even if that means simply updating your ol’ Flickr account!
3. Mobile. It’s going to be so big this year - it deserves just one word. This plays into our first prediction, but mobile technology is opening huge new doors in social media, advertising, video, commerce, and so on. One thing that is being overlooked though is SMS. In many of the articles you read about the future of mobile there tends to be amnesia over the fact that there are still millions of people who are not on smart phones. Which is to say, if your mobile strategy relies too heavily on apps or mobile access to email, you are ignoring hundreds of millions of people. SMS and voice are still essential to reaching the masses!
We would love to hear your picks for 2009 and your predictions for 2010. So please email, tweet, start a Wave, send one of us a message on Facebook, or — even better — text message us. You can SMS your comments to 738674 (spells REVMSG).
Happy New Year!
