As the holiday season rolls around, we’re starting to see feedback from the media and industry analysts discussing what was hot in 2010. Additionally, there is a lot of noise around 2011 forecasting projections and discussions about new companies, technologies and people that will be the next big thing.

2010 was, another successful year for Plimus. We saw tremendous customer uptake, launched our Buy Anyware API in June, partnered with PayPal on their new digital goods platform and participated in some leading tradeshows across the globe. In all of our industry conversations, we have continued to see some common technology trends and developments.

Here are some of the things we think were hot in 2010:

• Social gaming: Let’s all play together. Everything about social gaming was hot, hot, hot this year.  According to the 2010 Digital Goods Report, roughly 64 percent of users make at least one social gaming purchase a month and nine percent buy virtual goods daily on social games.
• Location-based applications: I’m checked in at Plimus, Inc., where are you? According to Pew Research, four percent of online Americans use location-based services. While it doesn’t sound like much, consider that leading app provider, Foursquare, grew to five million users this month, only a year since its inception.
• Apps, apps and more apps: Are you on app overload? If you are, there’s an app for that. Need I say more?! Apple’s app store has over 300,000 apps available and continues to grow daily with Android closing in from behind.
• Tablets: Welcome to the world of the iPad. Apple’s new iPad was launched in April of this year and sold three million devices in just 90 days – making it the fastest growing consumer device to date.

The above contenders are only just getting started and will continue to infiltrate our lives in 2011. However, we have some new front-runners that will be blasting onto the scene shortly.

Here are some of the things we think will be hot in 2011:

• Affiliate marketing: The way in which consumers, sellers and affiliates work together will change in the New Year. We’ll chat more about this very soon and you’ll see just how cool it will be.
• Social networking in the workplace: The Millennial generation that has entered the workplace within the last five years is the perfect example of social networking users. In order to mesh older generations with the younger, connected workforce, we’ll have to bridge this division with a common ground, such as social networking.
• Subscription-based billing models: Virtual and digital goods providers will begin to adjust their business models to accommodate a subscription-based billing model. Companies will begin to offer a no to low-cost on boarding fee to engage customers and then any add-ons or premium services are a pay-as-you play model. We covered this a bit in our Nov. 8 post, but stay tuned for future blog posts on this topic.
• Cloud services for SMBs: In the wake of the economic recession, more than 25 percent of SMBs have already turned to cloud computing in order to save time and money. In 2011, SMBs will continue to cash in on the benefits and rewards enabled by the cloud and will also expand the types of cloud-based services they are currently using.

Now, this list is by no means all inclusive. So, what do you think was hot in 2010 or will be in 2011?

Charles Born,

VP and Head of Marketing

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heemaz/5222325470/