2008 WEB-BASED TRENDSHTC Web-based Business Startup Seminar

Joshua Tabin, Startup Houston

STARTUP HOUSTON Startup Houston (www.startuphouston.com) advocates

and supports technology based startups in the greater Houston region by bringing local entrepreneurs and developers in contact with the greater marketplace through blog articles, sponsorship of social networking events and education of the startup process.

Our team: Kurt Stoll, Chief Technology Evangelist Josh Tabin, Chief Rainmaker

DISCLAIMER

Forecasting is an imperfect science

The only guarantee I can make you is that I am wrong; the questions is “how wrong am I?”

The following are my personal thoughts on what are important trends on the web based on my own research and review of other, and smarter, people’s lists

TOP TRENDS Mobile, mobile and mobile

Social network and profile management

Hyper-targeted advertising

The global economy gets small

Deconstruction of internal IT

MOBILE EXPLOSION Mobile web usage is poised to take off in the US as it

is already quite prevalent overseas

Multimedia content from and on mobile devices The success of the iPhone shows us the desire of

consumers to mobilize their content; Google’s Android could accelerate mobile web as well as 3G deployment;

Companies that leverage mobile platforms to allow ease of distributing content as well as receive more robust services like video and gaming should do well

Location based services that mashup with social media should bring usage to new levels

KEEPING UP WITH SOCIAL Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter etc…who

can keep up?

OpenID should become ubiquitous with recent adoption by AOL and Yahoo allowing for easier profile management

Web based services should begin a migration to the desktop as Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight gain traction

Consolidation are overdue but can valuations hold up

ADVERTISING SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU Time shifting (podcast, DVR) has made attention a

elusive item for advertisers

Bartering your attention to advertisers is being tested with peer-to-peer ad supported downloads (SpiralFrog, Qtrax, MySpace)

User defined ad profiles will allow individuals to structure their interest so advertisers can deliver relevant ads instead of the historic “shotgun” approach

Location based advertising should begin to enter into the market as retailers test mobile couponing based on proximity to a location

HYPER LOCAL Peer-to-peer eCommerce: small business growth

should accelerate as the macro economic conditions worsen

Niche social communities: special interest communities will pop up at a more rapid rate allowing small business the ability to compete for business with larger enterprise

Micro-blogging: applications like Twitter will enable increased dialogue and information sharing with a broader audience, providing small business with a new medium for having conversations with their market

WHAT DON’T YOU OUTSOURCE? There is little that cannot be outsourced from an IT

perspective today, making it more of a commodity than ever

Software as a Service: more standard software packages will have an online, utilitarian model turning the traditional licensing model on its head

CRM (SalesForce, SugarCRM, Highrise) ERP (NetSuite) Business tools (ZoHo, Google Apps)

Cloud/utility computing Amazon Web Services Content delivery networks

BIG PICTURE I expect a significant slowdown in the global economy

in 2008 which will hamper growth;

Companies with an advertising based model will need to prepare for a pullback in spending, enough to weather a storm of potentially significant proportions;

Venture investing will continue in web tech but have to demonstrate strong long-term returns when compared to “hot” industries: Nanotech Green tech Healthcare

JOSH TABINJOSH@STARTUPHOUSTON.COMJOSH@MOSAICCFO.COMWWW.STARTUPHOUSTON.COM