Trend Secrets

So, what’s happening in the world that everyone’s hip to?  Which way are hoards of people leaning on one trend or another?  What’s popular?

FOREVERISM | Encompasses the many ways that consumers and businesses are embracing conversations, relationships, and products that are never done. Driving its popularity is technology that allows them to find, follow, interact and collaborate forever with anyone & anything.

Consumers, in general, are into things that essentially have no definitive end.  Take online social profiles for example.  We spend countless hours grooming our identity as its know to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google and any of the other countless social networks we frequent multiple times each day, with no definition of when we may not use that profile any longer.  I mean, seriously, do any of us truly expect to use all of this stuff forever?  Well, actually, YES; sort of.

You see, when we create and maintain these profiles and presences, we aren’t actually thinking about the future, we are thinking about the NOW.  We are trying to become noticed in one shape or form.  The future is some abstract concept that, at that time, isn’t actually a reality.  The possibility that these profiles could last 2, 5 or 30 years, just isn’t relevant at that time.  In fact, the generations that are so susceptible to the swaying of the social and technological trends do less thinking about the future than any previous generation.  But, I digress.

Back to the title.  Trends are changing, all the time.  Items of interest come in and out of popularity.  Facebook is nothing short of a phenomenon.  The buggy confusing platform that makes it so easy to see all your friend’s pictures and quiz results is regarded as the top social networking platform that lurks on the web.  Setting records from the beginning and breaking new records almost every year, Facebook now has more than 200 million users, with more than 50% of those users logging on every day! 20 million users update their status each day.

Interesting fact: It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 millions listeners, 13 years for TV, 4 years for the Internet, 3 years for the iPod and 2 years for Facebook!

Just to put the amount of people that use Facebook into perspective, if Facebook were a country, it would have the 5th largest population in the world, beat only by China, India, the United States, and Indonesia, in that order.  The United States has just over 300 million people.

Over the last four years, the amount of US users who have a profile on a social networking site has more than quadrupled in the last four years.  Growing from 8% in 2005 to over 35% now, its no surprise the astounding numbers that Facebook has experienced. (Source: Pew Internet, January 2009.)

So, that’s great for now, but what about last February?  What was “trending” then?

GENERATION G | “Captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced ‘taking’ as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”

Where do we get these trend secrets?  Easy:  Trendwatching.com/Trends

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