The bubble is back

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For our last email of the year we wanted to take a moment and reflect on 2005. It has been an interesting year. There is an energy this year that hasn’t been present in the industry since, well, the boom. We were joking earlier in the year that “the bubble is back.”

We thought we would take a moment and look at 3 trends that defined the digital channel in 2005.

*Web 2.0*
Obviously the big buzzword of 2005, Web 2.0 is a misunderstood but powerful trend. “Tim O’Reilly”:http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/tim_bio.html has done the most thinking on the subject and “his conference”:http://www.web2con.com/ created the term. “His definition”:http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web_20_compact_definition.html is required reading to understand what Web 2.0 actually is.

*Folksonomy*
Clay Shirky popularized this word to describe “collaborative organization”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy schemes (“read the article”:http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html, “listen to the MP3″:http://cdn.itconversations.com/ITC.ETech2005-ClayShirky.2-2005.03.15.mp3). Sites like Flickr and Del.icio.us take advantage of tags to mark up and organize content. Look for more of the user defined Web in 2006.

*RSS*
RSS really came into its own in 2005. 2 years ago I had email and instant messenger open all the time. “My RSS reader”:http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdID=NetNewsWire has joined the party. The best way to keep track of sites since “PointCast”:http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_17/b3626167.htm (like we said, the bubble is back!).
In our January newsletter we’ll take a look at 6 things to focus on in 2006. Happy Holidays.