1. Next Generation Tablets will Reinvent the Publishing Industry

If the Internet is blamed for killing traditional media, Tablet computers will be their salvation.  2010 saw the iPad, a game changer for many in the media and tech industries, and 2011 will see the next generation of Apple’s tablet along with a variety of interesting competitors.

Already we’ve seen forays into digital distribution by many of the main players - notably News Corporation - with varying levels of success. But this is only the beginning.  2010 saw the first iPad exclusive publication - Richard Branson’s “Project” - offering a rich hypermedia experience that blurs the edges between text and video. In the coming months, Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs are set to launch a Tablet only newspaper called “The Daily” for a subscription of only 99c a week. It is one of a range of tactics used by Murdoch as he explored the possibilities of these emerging media.

However, this is only the beginning. 2011 will see a slew of new iPad only publications, and many wild experiments in interface design, payment models and of course, creative advertising. Out of this creative ferment will emerge whole new species of publications. These will merge what we traditionally thought of as magazines, TV, games and radio content with social media and crowd-sourcing, culminating in dynamic new media organisations. It will also offer an exiting media ecosystem for creative advertisers, making it a thrilling time to be in the industry.

2. Businesses will continue to morph into publishers

A continued trend in the online world will be away from SEO and towards what we at First Advertising call “content strategy”. This is a consequence of the various SEO strategies either becoming obsolete (most unethical strategies no longer work) or simply reverting to the only real long term solution: having good build quality on your website. So how do you generate business through organic search? The answer is simple, have a website worth visiting in the first place.

While a good design will get you so far, websites are more likely to drive in traffic if they have content that is engaging, readable and useful to the audience. This is best achieved if generated from within organisations rather than outsourced to those who don’t know the industry as well. For the last year at First we’ve been advising companies to revise their own internal processes and structures allow for these changes, in effect, telling our clients that they are now Publishers, and to make internal changes to reflect this, such as creating roles for Web Editors and Writers.

Expect 2011 to see more organisations hiring some of those out of work journalists as the new media landscape emerges.

3.The mobile web doesn’t explode, it supernovas.

As the prices of Smartphones fall, and Tablet computers continue to breed and diversify, the mobile web will expand into the mainstream like a gas into a vaccum. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has already said that their whole approach is now mobile-centric, and they and other major technology players have made inroads into location based (i.e. mobile based) services such as Facebook Places. This will have a number of consequences, not least a new way of building websites that scale organically on desktops, tablets and mobile devices where users are in a number of different contexts and as a consequence have different goals.

An explosion of the mobile web also means a boom in the App industry. Social Reviews site Yelp now gets almost a third of its traffic from its iPhone App, while users of Facebook’s mobile app visit the site twice as regularly. Also, 2011 will bring us a number of mobile web applications so brilliant, that the rest of us will be left kicking ourselves that we didn’t think of it first.

4. Short, snappy video will dominate online communications

Just as businesses get used to becoming publishers, they’ll also have to learn to become broadcasters. We now have so much information competing for our attention that we tend to skim through sites and have less and less time to consume large amounts of information, such as lengthy articles. In the language of sociology, people are foraging for information, not sitting down for a feast.

This, combined with the widespread use of tools like YouTube, uStream and Vimeo, has led to a resurgence of video communications online and already new mini-genres of video have evolved to facilitate quick and effective communications online. Although some worry about a “dumbing down” of communications, we’d hope it would lead to more effective “elevator pitch” style videos that get to the point quickly and clearly.

5. There will be more and more inventive uses of Social Media, and many more embarrassing flops

2010’s runaway social media sucess story was that of the “Old Spice Guy”; an online marketing campaign that was inventive, funny and engaged audiences. Importantly, its blitzkrieg style approach made a huge impact across the internet, delivered its message in an entertaining way, and critically, left before it outstayed its welcome (Irish marketing directors take note!). In a world cynical of traditional Advertising methods, it left audiences thrilled and enthused for a revitalised brand, and will be studied in marketing textbooks for decades.

2011 will no doubt see many new campaigns that are just as fresh and original as this, and a slew of other sterile clones of Old Spice Guy, that due to their unimaginative nature, we’ll likely never see posted on our facebook wall. In short, creativity will become even more crucial in online marketing.

6. Another long forgotten celebrity will find themselves an Internet phenomenon.

By now, everybody on the Internet must have been RickRolled at least once. If that last sentence makes no sense, this website should help explain things. Off the back of this deeply random occurance, the long forgotten Rick Astley became a cult figure to a new generation, even embarking on comeback and new album. This year, the surprise comeback was UK Synth band Erasue, who finally broke America thanks to being included in the fabulous Robot Unicorn Attack by AdultSwim. To this date, the game has been played by over 34 million people.

Even 18th century portrait painter Joseph Ducreux enjoyed a new audience after the his self-portrait was juxtaposed with archaic rap lyrics. Expect 2011 to be filled with increasingly random, time spanning media mashups.