2008 is coming. A lot has been written about it and... it is already past (which makes this post slightly... late!).   Year 2008.

Despite this, when reading a note from Edson Athayde on Facebook (” Hope and chicken soup “) on the neutrality of 2008 I decided to make a brief retrospective this year (late, I know). Edson's note said:

*“Quick, still, moved, still. I think 2008 will be remembered as the year when nothing has been resolved, little has been improved, where the planet has been where it has always been, but, as Galileo would say, it has moved. *

*Will we miss 2008?”

Without questioning Edson's point of view, I think that despite everything 2008 was what I call a silently important year (at least part of my world, online).

After entering 2007 with the “YOU” as a figure of the previous year in Time cover s, feel 2008 as “O” year of the Internet; the year of consolidation in which I felt the Internet mature and in the phase where you can say: “Now it’s all starting!”; a year of “Tipping Point”. And this, for me that I accompany the Internet in Portugal from the beginning (from the time of PUUG - Portuguese Unix Users Group, first Portuguese ISP), is relevant.   

What I found relevant in 2008: 

  • ** Massification:** It is no longer necessary to explain what the Internet is. Although many who often use it do not know exactly what it is, use it! I always said that when people used the Internet like electricity, we'd get to the point of maturity. We're almost... * Proof of this*: My 8-year-old started using Google Chrome and my wife started using Last.FM, discovered Google Reader/News and started using Gmail:);

  • ** Presence:** It's no longer acceptable that a brand is not on the Internet. Having a website is the minimum requirement for any company. Nothing new, but in 2008 I felt that many companies began to realize the need to develop an online strategy and part of the online departments ceased to be islands and became part of a transversal channel management strategy;

  • Google: 10 years! Only 10 years and probably something that will mark the history of this century. I usually play (really!) with BG/AG - Before Google/After Google. Google marks this New Age. It is impossible to think of “Digital Culture” and “Digital Natives” without immediately thinking of Google. And 2008, it could be marked only by these “10′′′ years. But more than the 10 years, in 2008 Google said. In addition to remaining as “The” research engine, it continues to grow while maintaining innovation. And gradually, he managed to do what others had tried unsuccessfully: to shake the Microsoft world. After leading the world of “search”, online advertising, creating fan communities with applications like GMail, Reader, News, slowly launches Google Docs, enters the mobile world with Android, launches Chrome (which is much more than a Browser), without fuss, defines a strategy for Social Networking with Google Friend Connect... a year Googliano!

  • **Microsoft... negative: ** I believe that 2008 was the year of the beginning of the fall (I was going to write... “from the end”). Vista went wrong, Google dominates online advertising and attacks the desktop, shifting productivity tools to the Web, Windows Mobile lost the moment to heavy competitors (iPhone, Android, RIM and, more recently, the Palm reborn), Apple won users coming from Windows, Zune is not even a competitor of iPod, XBox, not enough competition from PS2 and PS3, loses ground to a technically inferior console (Wii), Linux gains ground as an operating system on servers, IE loses market share, starts redundancies, the mega campaign with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates fails (see Show Circus and New Family ) and, worse, the Microsoft brand seems to have gained a chronic negative image;

  • ==References====External links== Not only for the second generation and introduction of iPhone 3G, but for what it means at the real start of the Mobile Internet. As an iPhone critic, I heard a head of one of the leading mobile phone manufacturers say that the iPhone was no more than a mobile phone with Browser. The truth is that this is “too much” because it represents a great paradigm shift. A mobile phone with a camera, a decent browser, RSS, applications like the Things (best GTD I know) Evernote (information management application that won the Crunchies), videocasts/podcasts (recommend the Ted Talks and Pop!Techs ), iPod, Twitter, etc.... It's good!

  • ** Social networks: ** o Facebook, despite the little expression it has in Portugal, at least compared to the Hi5, reached 150 million users (the figures speak for themselves). Google has launched Google Friend Connect. O LinkedIn Takes over as a business network. O Ning as a platform for creating own communities. In Portugal, Star Tracker had the relevant role of creating a community of Portuguese talents;

  • ==References====External links== Twitter. The service that started the year with the stigma (real!) of being unstable and always being down ( the famous whale ), not only “stabilized” but gained immense popularity, leaving a “techie” community for the “mainstream”. Twitter has become a new medium where news (of any kind) is usually released before other traditional media. Since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on the Gaza Strip conflict, Twitter has become a vital source of information;

  • ** Bubble 2.0:** saw a new web bubble. Again without realizing business models, significant investments were seen in StartUps Web. However, I believe this time this bubble has been more sustained. Even projects without a financial model in sight have relevant assets (such as Twitter that has a giant and participatory community). Of course this bubble has passed by Portugal that needs risk capital policies appropriate to the current reality; and just follow models such as YCombiner.

Curiosity of 2008:

  • ** Thundercat Trailer:** one of the biggest hits of the year on YouTube is the trailer of a movie that doesn't exist. Someone somewhere spent months editing what would be the trailer for the movie Thundercats, with Brad Pitt and Hugh Jackman;

  • **Top Ten viral video mix: ** again someone, somewhere, surely with a lot of time in their hands, compiled the Top 10 viral videos of 2008 and created a 6-minute “whopper”. There's Obama and everything!

 

What didn't happen:

  • ** The Magellan:** to do political marketing... okay. That, as Seth Godin says, “All Marketers are liars”... okay. But raising expectations for children and not fulfilling them... no! And that's what José Socrates did. It is unacceptable that the Magellan were not distributed by Christmas.

 

What about off the web?

  • *Barack Obama: In August 2008 he accepted the Democratic nomination for the U.S. primary election. November 4th made history, not only because he was the first black American president but because he represented change and hope in the new world. Obama has charisma, he's a fighter, he's an excellent speaker, and he's got ruler's upholstery. The whole world has created high expectations. It is expected to be realized that these expectations must be put in all of us and in a “Yes, WE can!”;

  • ** Oil/fuel rise:** perhaps not the best reason but the rise in fuel prices has alerted many people and created a “new” ecological awareness;

    • *Shoe to Bush:**It's almost symbolic but it happened that Bush finished the year with a shoe That's funny. On 14 December, at a conference in Baghdad, a reporter threw not one, but two shoes at President Bush and called him a dog. The shoes failed but made me realize where the word “shoes” came from.:);

  • ** Israeli attacks on Gaz** On 28 December, Israel launched air strikes in Gaza. After the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has expired, Hamas starts attacks on Israel. Israel retaliated with air strikes that killed more than 300 people. irritates and upsets the international passivity of policy and diplomatically correct;

  • ==References====External links==:);

  • ** Collapse of the financial system and consequent crisis:** The “tal” negative mark of 2008. It is true that a crisis is always bad. However, I believe that this crisis, like almost all, can have a reforming effect. Many traditional businesses will disappear, lose size or be forced to reinvent themselves. The next financial models will be different and will be adapted to the “ Long tail ” and “free.” Times of crisis are always rich in innovation. When well used, they are very rich in the ability to innovate and grow.

Let us imagine, by the positive, the times that come!