In this article I would like to appear as a futurologist to consider modern Web 2.0 the most salient and fascinating trends. On carrying out certain analysis, on rubbing shoulders with software vendors and marketing specialists as well as on assessing various Internet projects state-of-the-art I defined top nine Web 2.0 trends.

1. Web 3.0 age is not going to come yet
People increasingly discuss the point that Web 2.0 concept has outlived it usefulness and that now we are on the threshold of Web 3.0 age coming. As for me, that is not the case for at least two strong reasons.

First of all, Web 2.0 is rather hefty concept in itself and may well host various interpretations.

Secondly, there are more than fifteen different Web 3.0 definitions and their advocates are extremely unlikely to reach understanding on the problem and altogether settle on one of the proposed variants in the nearest future.

Below are listed only few of Web 3.0 definitions I used to come across:

• Intuitive social recommender
• Multimedia search engine
• Systems established on the commerce-on-demand approach.
• 3D worldwide web (Second Life)
• Robot supremacy.

2. The priority will be given to subject-oriented social media
The Facebook giddy success gave rise to the large scaled creation of similar services. Still, now the majority of Web specialists abandon themselves to the idea that the subject-related sites are exactly the things of the future.

Non subject-related media lack the so-called consolidating pivot. In fact, it represents the community of absolutely different people united by the common wish to find their old friends and strike up new acquaintances. So to attract users by providing them with the opportunity of searching friends it is necessary to possess the immense user base.

Unlike them, narrow subject media are built according to the principle of uniting people with similar tastes that allows even a small community to develop dynamically.

There is no doubt that one of the basic reasons for the fact that narrow subject media are much easier in finding their advertising spenders as their target audience is much more confined than the audience of non subject-related media. Basically for this very reason the advertising in narrow subject media allows to achieve exact targeting taking into account people’s interests and thus being more effective.

3. Show business will make regular use of social media
Recently, the higher activity in social media has been increasingly exhibited by various pop stars. My own PR-agency serves several production groups and within the framework of such cooperation we promote both new and established pop stars in social media.

I asked some representatives of the specified production groups why they give so much attention to internet marketing and got the following answers.

One of the major reasons for choosing Internet marketing is its high financial viability. Suffice it to say that a far-reaching Internet marketing campaign lasting for a month costs less than a minute of TV commercial airtime, being exactly not prime time.

Another reason for choosing Internet marketing is that today the advantages of social media promotion are taken by only few celebrities. Thus, the use of “newly minted” marketing means grants them a considerable competitive advantage as compared to rivals.

And, finally, social media help to bring stars much closer to their admirers as fans can look through their idols’ informal photos, enjoy the opportunity of sending him/her a message or to learn their opinion on some common subjects. Thus, the star image is developed to the extent when public starts perceiving him/her as a nice guy, as a very close person. It is sure to impact public attitude towards a pop star in the most beneficial way.

Still another reason for choosing SMM is that mass media just adore writing about celebrities’ blogs.

Vin Diesel personal page on Facebook may be cited as one of the most striking examples of pop stars’ promotion by means of social media. Despite the existence of numerous false celebrities’ pages, this very page belongs to Vin himself. Here he uploads his personal photo and video content and chats with his fans.

“Forsage” star has more than four millions of virtual friends and their quantity is constantly increasing. Each note, photo or video added by Vin are commented by dozen thousands of users.

4. Blog advertising will pass through the stage of “sponsored posts”
The majority of specialists who have to deal with blog embedded advertising may well confirm that now A-list bloggers’ advertising effectiveness is considerably lower as compared to the previous year. Now a whisper goes round that A-list bloggers’ advertising is nearing to its end. What are the reasons for such a change?

Well, the A-list bloggers have most probably bogged down in the incredible volumes of embedded advertising. The quantity of sponsored posts has far reached the threshold when they could remain unnoticed. As a result, the A-list bloggers’ credibility has significantly decreased. People even started classifying them by three main types: those who take money, those ashamed on taking money and those who add posts for free.

5. Big business is expected to come to social media
Over the last two years the interest for big business social media promotion has considerably increased. The reasons for this are quite evident.

First of all, social media provide infinite opportunities for the solution of the whole range of marketing challenges: from sales promotion to developing viral campaigns. SMM promotion instruments comprise more than forty various tools.

Moreover, as in the case with show business, only few companies take a full advantage of social media marketing that grants socially oriented companies the winning competitive advantage.

6. Internet communities will fight spam in a different way
Internet community promotion is like a free lunch: the more popular the community is, the juicier it is for Social Media Wolves. This is precisely why one of the trends widely considered smart to emphasize is that communities themselves will develop new and more effective ways of spam fighting. Well, then why spam tide is constantly rising?

SMM market is not mature yet that is why it is largely occupied by many “pseudo-specialists” who consider traffic attraction from social media to be the major SMM task. So spam is widely used just as one of the ways.

According to specialists, the basic vector of spam fighting strategy is going to drift to community self-moderation. Web 2.0 concept in itself suggests the activity of all process participants, including even common community members. Thus, community members will track down the spam and fight it on their own means and devices.

7. Internet marketing specialists will be professionally trained
Today, the situation ruling Internet marketing is rather challenging: on the one hand, there is a burning issue of shortage in specialists; one the other hand, there observed the topmost demand for them.

Now the majority of Internet marketing specialists are mostly self-educated persons. However, such an elaborated industry like Internet marketing severely longs for the so-called “talent foundry” which may help to somehow level the challenging disparity between supply and demand at the respective labor market.

8. SMM specialists will not be traffic-oriented
Now the majority of SMM specialists have only one real benchmark – that is traffic. However, soon the situation is going to change for the next reasons.

Social media are very reluctant to part with their visitors. Nobody wants to be simply double shuffled and social media constitute no exception to it. That is why they take various measures to minimize users’ escape.

More and more SMM specialists gradually realize that PR major purpose is not a traffic attraction but reporting certain information to target audience. To do this, it is absolutely unnecessary to bring the user to this or that website as he/she may get your message when reading interesting blog or forum, watching video or looking through the news.

9. “Black Internet PR” campaigns will considerably grow
One of the most popular services provided by modern Internet marketing specialists is the prevention and fighting informational online attacks. Now this service is in great demand as black Internet marketing campaigns increasingly pick up the stream. As the matter of fact, the professional activity of some companies is entirely focused on providing black PR services.

Not so long ago black Internet marketing was rather rarely used, if any, mainly as a tin-pot support for offline campaigns. And now we increasingly often come across the marketing campaigns developed exclusively for Internet.

Such popularity of black PR is based on several major reasons.

First of all, the black PR is always in great demand nowadays. Settling the disputes by means of weapon is too troublesome matter so it is often replaced by media wars.

Secondly, the dirt spread through online attacks is very hard to scrub off because, as a rule, the attack is distributed in many different directions. On the one hand, the dirt is published in mass media; on the other hand, some forum guests, bloggers and community members thought by people as independent inveigh against the person being blacked. All this taken in general give rise to avalanche effect which may either completely ruin or considerably undermine the business.

And, finally, it is worth mentioning here that people now greatly enjoy looking at the seamy side of life…They pay no heed to information about anybody’s success or progress, but on hearing some dirt or other blackening information the majority of people display much more involvement in the problem.

This is precisely why “black Internet marketing” is waxing in size and strength. Well, and we have nothing to do but counteract it.

Conclusion
In conclusion I would like to say that the aforementioned trends do not represent ultimate truth. I have just tried to foresee the future of Web 2.0 world taking into consideration my own experience, analysis results and experts’ opinions. Time will tell, however, whether I am right or wrong.