2008 - What's new for next year from MSO.net's Net.Matters - MSO.net's internet predictions for 2008
The World Wide Web is constantly evolving and next year will be no exception. Whilst it's nigh on impossible to predict what will burst upon the arena - we can at least make some informed guesses. Here our top three:
YouTube and other social networking sites made their presence felt in a big way this year. If you're under 30 it's highly likely that you'll have your own page in any number of the Web 2.0 communities and all of us are familiar now with the terms, blogs, wikis and podcasts. We foresee this genre growing only further in 2008 with more websites employing the same methods to reach their target audience or using the likes of YouTube to allow users to interact with their site.
The use of mobile internet looks set to grow over the course of next year as a result of the rolling out of mobile broadband. It will mean that mobile network operators will have to expand their networks to encompass a range of devices, in contrast to the closed shop approach that is taken presently and which was highlighted by the founder of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee during a speech he made in Boston at the Mobile Internet conference.
The whole mobile market looks to be heading for a shake-up particularly since the formation of the Open Handset Alliance, 30 members in a multinational group who support Google's open access Android platform.
On a gloomy note, the recent spate of security breaches and loss of our personal data is likely to make an impact in 2008. Oliver Friedrichs (director of emerging technologies at Symatec) predicts that social networking sites may become more of a target for hackers next year. More worryingly hackers will focus on websites we use and trust, handing out malicious code to unsuspecting visitors. Bizarrely, crime is now rife amongst those online gaming in virtual worlds - hackers crack an account in order to steal a player's weapons in order to sell them on. Friedrichs predict this cypber crime is likely to get worse and worse.
And for those of you interested in the presidential elections next year..There are 19 presidential candidates currently campaigning online and accepting online donations. Not only could we see attacks on those respective sites in 2008, but hackers could divert funds to an alternative candidate or to their own pocket by registering a pseudo "typo-domain" which replicates the legitimate site.
