Welcome to 2014. Wondering what will happen this year in technology that might impact your library? Well, that’s a very good question, but fortunately there seems to be no shortage of predictions on the Internet that might help with the answers. Here are four we found that we thought might interest you, and most of these sites contain other predictions as well. It could be an intriguing year.
- Top 5 digital marketing trends of 2014 (ClickZ/Navneet Kaushal) “There are many content discovery apps available including Flipboard, Pulse, Foodspotting, and Fancy that help users to tweak the feeds by merchants and businesses according to their contexts and interests. Data is filtered and customized information platforms are curated by users according to their needs. This is set to become another important trend in 2014 and provide potential customers with greater engagement with the business. Marketers can increase the relevancy of their marketing since users can arrange the posted content according to what suits them.”
- 7 consumer trends to run with in 2014 (trendwatching.com) “Remarkably, two of the most renowned encrypted communications providers in the world (Lavabit and Silent Circle) had to shutter their email services because they no longer felt they could guarantee privacy from government agencies. They (regrettably) recognized that once data was collected, it could be harvested. This all leads to opportunities in 2014 for NO DATA brands: brands that simply offer brilliant service, while also loudly and proudly eschewing the collection of personal data.”
- 5 network security predictions for 2014 (Enterprise Networking Planet/Elizabeth Harrin) “Biometric authentication, including fingerprinting, is already in use and looks set to grow. Adoption in some sectors has been slow due to concerns about storing personal data of this kind, but users will slowly come around to the idea that biometric logins are the way network authentication must go. In fact, it could be a welcome relief from having to remember so many passwords, as well as a more secure alternative to web services that claim to safely store all your passwords so you only have to remember one.”
- Study: Biometric smartphones predicted for 2014 (U.S. News and World Report/Tom Risen) “Ericcson, the world’s biggest manufacturer of mobile devices, surveyed [pdf] more than 100,000 people in 40 countries on the top 10 consumer trends expected for 2014. The report shows 52 percent of smartphone users want to use their fingerprints instead of passwords, and half of consumers even want to use their fingerprints to make online credit card payments. ‘A further 61 percent of people want to use fingerprints to unlock their phones and 48 percent are interested in using eye-recognition,’ the report said. ‘It doesn’t stop there – 74 percent believe that biometric smartphones will become mainstream during 2014.’”
OPLIN prediction:
We’re going to take a big chance here and predict that…libraries will be busy in 2014. Happy New Year!
