Disclaimer: I'm not a trendspotter. Ypulse has always been about aggregating, distilling and attempting to make sense of what's happening in the world of youth culture -- not predicting the future. That said, I am going to repeat my "Hot or Not" post for 2008 -- you can see last year's attempt here. This year it's more tech focused, since that has really been my focus in 2007.

Hot:

Casual games for kids. Kids are getting online and getting cell phones younger and younger. As a result we're going to continue to see a proliferation of what younger kids want most from technology -- games. Games on tween cell phones, games in kids' the ever expanding universe of virtual worlds. Once kids hit full blown tweendom, they also want to socialize, but until then, the internet and phones are still about playing. Let's make them fun and educational. Related: Another new study on what kids do online (i.e. play games).

Mobile social networking. Allison and Alan from NGT wrote about this in a Ypulse Guest Post recently. I think 2008 is the year this will really begin to take off with teens -- mostly as another way to check "email" or messages, comments, etc. via cellphone since MySpace and Facebook have replaced email as the way teens message each other. I also think it's a way for teens who either don't have access to the internet at home or who are forbidden to use these sites to participate in social networking -- MTV has already launched a mobile social network for Tr3s...

Facebook, apps instead of widgets and more "privacy." This may be the generation that is more comfortable living their lives online, but not when the people looking are adults with authority over teenagers (parents, teachers, cops, etc.). There will continue to be a migration to Facebook from MySpace as Facebook is viewed as "more private" by teenagers. Teens may keep their MySpace profiles to connect with bands and check out content, but it's becoming all about Facebook for socializing. It doesn't matter to teens that there are tons of loopholes or that adding Facebook apps exposes your personal data to marketers (though I am a proponent of opting in), it's just that most moms and dads haven't figured out how to find you there...yet. And as I alluded to the other day, this move towards private is fueling the growth of applications and apparently hurting the widget space.

As the iPhone drops in price more teens will buy iPhones. Since phones are teens' lifelines, they want everything on one device - web, music, video, photos. The iPhone is the first consumer oriented smart phone to do it. And well, teens already love their iPods...

UGC (user generated content). I don't believe the hype about the decline of user generated content -- maybe for some sites and some audiences, but UGC has always been about the Long Tail with the exception of breakout viral videos. Teens love looking taking and looking at photos of themselves, reading comments from their peers and watching videos made by other teens. This content may not be able to be monetized, but it's not going away, and if anything will continue to grow as tweens begin using their camera phones....I also think it's still a great way to engage users in a branded promotion, i.e. ugc competitions.

Not:

TV. Teens have been replacing television with the internet even before the writers' strike or at least are surfing while watching their favorite shows. But with the strike dragging on, this will only intensify and speed up in '08. I definitely don't think TV is dead for this generation, but this is just one more reason to turn it off and go online.

Podcasting. I just don't hear that much about it anymore. I know there are some high profile teen podcasters but it never quite reached the mass adoption level of blogs or even online video.

Tier 2 Social Networks. I think there is going to be a shakeout at this level. Tagged, Bebo, Sconex....all with loads of users but can they all survive with Facebook becoming more and more of a social operating system?

Internet safety as scary. I hope in some tiny way I had something to do with this. Parents don't want to hear from well meaning law enforcement or fear-based internet safety experts anymore. They got that message. Social networking, virtual worlds and all of this technology is not going away. They want to understand how it works and how it is affecting teens' socialization.

MySpace. They're still huge and not going away, but how many of their teen users are still active? I know they are focusing more and more on content, and that will always be a draw, but where teens socialize with each other is where they spend the most time online...

I'm just skimming the surface. Feel free to post your own tech or non-tech predictions, agree or disagree in the comments!

Posted by anastasia