Trends in 2005: Vlogs, SOA and IP Everything - Page 3

RSS Hits Bumpy Growth

Spammers have already found a way to bum the karma of bloggers' blissfully spam-free existence with the arrival of link spam, the practice of carpet bombing a blogger's site with tons of comments. And then there are the bandwidth bear issues that will continue to bedevil the growth of RSS . You might say RSS is headed for an awkward teen year of growth, as enterprises grapple with how to conserve their bandwidth while feeding the RSS need among subscribers.

Better Get a Vlog

Moblogging, blogging with pictures, will continue growing, thanks to a new generation of photojournalists in the making. Only with moblogging there will be a lot of bad pics along the way. Video blogging has already been streaming out of Weblogs and will be picking up steam fast in 2005, due to better codecs for compression, and the continued growth of video phones via cell phones. This will be a raw year for the trend, but in this mid-decade year, companies will be peeking at a few vlogs to see how their messages are getting out.

BitTorrent, We Hardly Knew Ye

BitTorrent came out of nowhere last year to push peer-to-peer technology to new heights. Thanks to its ability to improve upload/download technology with a system that allows file-sharers to grab content from each other's systems and strip them into shreds until they're ready to be called up by a user and reassembled. But alas, Hollywood caught up with BitTorrent in 2004, with copyright infringement suits by the truckload against folks that pilfered major media files via the network. But the thing is, the technology has legitimate uses, just like the VCR does. And with the Supreme Court gearing up to hear a case involving use of P2P and copyright, expect to be hearing more about BitTorrent and more programs like it.

RFID: Planning at a Whole New Level

Thanks to mandates from the nation's largest purchasers, radio frequency identification, also known as RFID, auto-ID and contactless data transmission, went from a little understood technique for automating warehouse and supply-chain operations to a major initiative for the big consulting and software companies.

While the most obvious benefits of RFID are speeding supply chain operations by eliminating the need to manually scan barcodes, the real juice will come from plugging the resultant data into corporate systems. Businesses will get a new view of trends, identify weak points in their operations and take planning to a whole new level.

Budgets for RFID will grow in 2005, but RFID-centric companies may not see much of that money. Analysts with ABI Research say two trends are emerging in retail: The "slap and ship" method, which is applying the tag without any attempt to capture data themselves. The other is turning to their traditional technology partners, companies they know and trust. Both techniques are sapping the $2 million to $3 million average expected by RFID-centric vendors.

Carriers, Customers Ready for 3G

Wireless telecom players wasted little time establishing the fact that 2005 will be a big year for third-generation technology in the United States.

The wireless broadband technology caught on first in Asia, but is spreading quickly here as carriers' multi-billion-dollar investments in new network equipment from Lucent , Nortel and others begins to pay off.

First, Cingular, which expanded its high-speed data network with the $41 billion purchase of AT&T Wireless, declared success in recent trials. The company completed High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) data calls on a 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunications System during tests in the Atlanta market.

Shortly after Cingular's news, Verizon Wireless made its own noise in the space, announcing an expansion of its 1xEV-DO 3G network to 30 cities and an ambitious multimedia content delivery service that will support video-on-demand, news and entertainment and live, 3-D interactive gaming.

Industry-watchers say consumers are ready to pay for premium services, especially those that provide video, such as Verizon Wireless' pending offering, which will cost $15 per month on top of the regular monthly bill.

And phone makers -- including LG, Samsung and UTStarcom -- are only too happy to oblige, developing new handsets built for video. In addition, content makers are looking to format video clips specifically for the smaller screen.

Another major player in the U.S. market, Sprint , which is in the process of acquiring Nextel Communications , also has its engineers working on premium 3G services.

Written by: Roy Mark, Colin Haley, Susan Kuchinskas, Sean Michael Kerner, Clint Boulton, Jim Wagner, Erin Joyce, Tim Gray, Catherine Pickavet and Michael Singer