I was recently reading an article from Mashable about the trends of the Real Time Web and it got me thinking about how small business are going to be able to leverage these new trends and tools to stay competitive. Here are some trends I think will be coming for the real time web that might impact your small business:
Trend #1 – Advertising is shifting from Contextual Relevance to Temporal Relevance
I recently was chatting with a friend of mine who works with a large social networking company about online advertising and how we are going through a shift. For as long as web advertising has been around it has been about contextual relevance. What is written on the page drives the ad copy to increase the click through potential. This is how Google Adwords works and almost every web advertising system out there.
What is emerging is what he calls “temporal relevance” which is driven by advertising in a time sensitive manner. While this could be a spammers delight (see hashtag spamming on Twitter) it could be great to increase click throughs when the maximum amount of people are looking for something in a particular topic.
Trend #2: Google Wave is the New Era of Real Time Collaboration
I have been using Google Wave and the amazing real time collaboration available with this platform blows my mind. The potential for this tool is staggering. I always explain Google Wave is like Twitter, IM and email had a baby. Mashable talks about this topic as well:
“Real-time will play a major role in the future of online collaboration. We’ve seen all the hype around the new Google Wave platform, as well as the growth of Twitter and Twitter-like communications (such as Facebook status). On the business side, SAP’s Gravity, a prototype of real-time collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave, is a good example. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg.”
Trend #3: E-Commerce will transform to a shared and social experience
Similar to the trend of social commerce, imaging a shared shopping experience but take it a step further. What if you have prices change in real-time based on demand. This has been happening for years to a certain degree with the travel industry and its revenue management systems. But still, that was based on historical data and human modification of current trends. It is not truly real time. With real time data and real time e-commerce, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving in the United States where everyone shops for Christmas) would never look the same. What about products that rely on a certain freshness or “cinderella packaging”. Mashable talk about it with this great example:
“For consumer facing applications, real-time pricing can be a competitive advantage for perishable goods. For example, the grocer with fresher fruit can theoretically charge or sell more by providing real-time freshness data. With the growth of smart energy grids, real-time pricing of solar energy and electric power provides tremendous cost-savings for consumers. Generally within e-commerce, real-time inventory information that is accessible through the web is valuable for both the consumer and company. What are the other areas of high impact? Travel? Off-season luxury goods? Event tickets? Let us know in the comments below.”
What else? Analytics? Job Contracting?
What else do you think will be impacted by this shift to the real time web? Leave us a comment and tell us your thoughts.
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