Personal cloud services grow. Cloud services are not just for tech companies and server admins anymore. Consumers are buying real estate in the cloud too. Music services are the first to the party, with iTunes Sync, Amazon Cloud Player, and Google Music taking the concept to mainstream consumers. Dropbox is another star to keep an eye on in this space.
Focus on existing customers. New customers are expensive to attract and tougher to come by in these tight economic times. To defend customers from clever competitors, companies are going to need to get very good at super-serving their existing bases. Companies that have thrown out half-attempts at loyalty programs will rediscover the importance of retaining and growing existing clients. New efforts will include mobile as a central component. While marketers begin start to get better at more personalized customer life cycle marketing with effective new channels, they are going to find new value in paying more attention to customer assets they already have. See The Real Value of Customer Centricity.
Apple will stumble. Steve Jobs is no longer there to drive the company forward, and distractions have never been higher. Through all the leadership transition, new product development efforts, and endless patent distractions, Apple is going to hit the market with a big dud next year, and people will question whether the tech giant has lost its way.
Facebook fatigue. It is not going to disappear or go away. More apps and devices are updating Facebook and fewer users are personally. The result is a lot of noise and little return for efforts to keep up. Despite continued growth into more and more areas of our life, Facebook activity will decrease on aggregate as its users have cut back on play-by-play status updates. People are changing the way they use Facebook, and as the platform continues to evolve, the social network’s growing user base will be less engaged than they once were.
Mobile payments gain traction. There have been a number of mobile payment providers pop in and out of the conversation over the last few years. Nothing has yet to gain sufficient momentum to go mainstream or even capture much attention from early adopters. Next year, NFC devices and infrastructure in the US, as well as initiatives from the carriers, credit card companies, device manufacturers, and completely new entrants are sure to produce a few standouts from the crowd that begin to gain mainstream recognition. Consumers want it.
