If the past year was any indication of what trends will rule in 2014, it’s safe to say that technology will keep getting more and more personalized. While over the last several years technology has enabled people to connect in unparalleled ways and form new online communities, in 2014 we can expect that the individual will take center stage.
Over the past year we saw some new buzzwords spring to life and some long desired sci-fi fantasies come alive. Whether it was the first wave of Google Glass owners or Apple’s usage of their iBeacon feature on the latest Black Friday sales, technology of the individual is clearly on the horizon.
Here are five personal-tech trends that will rule 2014:
Wearables, Health, and Fitness
The hottest trend that only seems to grow stronger is quantified-self products. I’m not sure if it’s tied up with the rise of trends like productivity or a general increasing awareness of health, but people are becoming more and more obsessed with tracking and analyzing their habits in different ways.
You can use a product like “Rescue Time” to measure productivity at work and how you use your computer, but if you’re a fitness fanatic you can turn to wearables like Angel, Fitbit or Jawbone’s Up that combine a device with an app to measure every aspect of your daily health rituals.
One other bright spot on the health tech horizon are the increasing number of health apps connected to gadgets that can actually help improve the lives of people with chronic illnesses. Great examples of this are products like the recently launched Dario, which will revolutionize the lives of people with diabetes, or smartCARD, a device that lets you check your cholesterol via an iPhone
You’ll notice I’m not mentioning Google Glass. That’s because I think this trend is waiting for 2015. Smart-watches … well lets just wait for Apple to decide.
User Generated Content Is The New Marketing
You know this already: about 90% of customers say their purchasing decisions are influenced by online reviews and social media. This is not a new trend. Brands have been trying to capitalize on their online word of mouth via social media outlets for a while now. Over the past year, brands finally cracked the puzzle. I believe that in 2014 we will see companies like Yotpo, Get Fresh, Pluck, and Lithium become more and more popular with social tools to make customer’s reviews spread even wider.
Personal Experiences
Every email marketer already knows the famous *|FNAME|* merge tag. It’s the tag that automatically pulls in your subscribers name and translates the “Hi *|FNAME|*” into “Hi Roy”. This level of personalization has been around for a while, but it’s been getting more popular and more sophisticated.
If you think about it, social media is built around this personalization, where each platform is crafted by your engagement and content. Just like fingerprints, there are no two similar Facebook news feeds, and each person’s experience is shaped by their interests and community.
Nonetheless, this has only lately really shown its impact on marketing, but in 2014 it will rule it.
The reason sending complex personalized content to customers still hasn’t become a really big trend (beyond email marketing), is that it’s been out of reach for most users.
In 2013, the industry saw the launch of several smart CRM platforms that leverage user data in a big way. Sure we can look at services like Intercom and Hubspot’s inbound CRM platform that have experienced growth this year both in rates as well as in buzz, but you also have companies like Idomoo that are taking it to the next level by creating personalized videos for millions of customers integrating customer data and targeted offers.
Adding that to Apple’s iBeacon and other technologies that will help marketers to react in real-time to their clients, 2014 will be ruled by uber-personalized messaging. No more one size fits all.
Connected Homes
We’ve been hearing about “connected homes” or “smart houses” ever since the first Jetsons episode was aired. Though smart houses have been around for a while, they were always portrayed as something only the richest people could afford.
Over 2013 there was a giant leap forward for connected homes. This leap became possible thanks to the small very smart gadgets that have evolved around the growth of smartphone usage. Some of the most interesting products, such as ex Apple exec Tony Fadell’s Nest, have already introduced their self learning and programmable thermostat’s and smoke detectors and I can’t wait to see what “boring” utility industry they’ll disrupt next with their great and smart design.
Another company that got my attention this year and I’m looking forward to see what it’ll bring with 2014 is Evoz. This company creates the software for smart utility devices, and serves as the brain behind the connection between your smartphone and other devices.
For example, they have focused on baby monitors, turning this generally simple product into a more intelligent device. The platform can issue push notifications when your baby is crying and can even help you develop a new sleep plan for your child. The same system will soon be applied to more and more utilities around the house, making it a lot smarter and pro-active for everyone.
Redesigning For Mobile
No, I’m not trying to tell you that mobile apps are going to be big in 2014. They’ve been big for almost four years now. Designing for mobile first has been trending in 2013 but a more interesting trend that has been developing in the last year is redesigning for mobile. Email is one of the first tools to go through a re-imagination process. Mailbox reimagined email around tasks and to-do lists; Molto worked to make email conversations feel more like chat with social media oriented features, and Hop, not yet fully launched, will take a similar approach.
So what will be next? I’m guessing chat applications (Facebook already took a shot with their ‘bubble heads’ feature), and there’s still calendars, phone books, and other apps that we seem to take for granted but I expect will be completely reimagined for the “phone-first” era.
Usually trends tend to develop over a year, hinting at what the next big thing might be. But, the real fun is in finding the surprising winner. Every year we try to predict the next trend, while at the same time some struggling new company, or few guys at a bar, or maybe, just maybe a current tech giant is getting ready to shuffle all the cards with innovations we can’t even think of. We’ll just have to wait and see.