[2010 trends] A Google memo on the year ahead

In a nutshell, these are my eight areas to watch:

More people online:

The Internet is becoming more and more of an integral part of life in South Africa. According to World Wide Worx, Internet usage has increased by 15% in the past year. This is excellent news.

Access, affordability and content creation are all important for growth in the online space, which in turn creates value not only for consumers but for businesses, which need to closely follow the new behaviours of their customers.

Online marketing:

South Africa is officially out of the recession but, as with the other developed economies, recovery will be slow. What's clear, though, is that the winners in the recession were those businesses which put digital at the heart of their strategies.

We're now operating in a world where there is no room for guesswork in marketing, and business decisions can be based on cold, hard numbers. Ecommerce players now understand online marketing is a truly measurable medium, and that by constantly testing and improving their landing pages, they can see real return on investment (ROI) and get increasing value from search traffic.

South African businesses of all sizes still have almost six months to make the most of online marketing in the run-up to the world cup.

Mobile:

Mobile is booming across Africa and is an area that businesses can not afford to miss out on. There were +90 million new subscribers on the continent in 2009, and a projected +350 million new subscriptions in the next four years.

Mobile internet access in South Africa has already surpassed laptop and desktop access, and will be a key feature of the world cup and beyond - as both visitors and local search for information while on the move.

Globally, Android-powered and similar handsets are showing how consumer behaviour changes with the right device, and we expect to see interesting new trends emerge as new devices take root to aid a better, more innovative web.

Maps:

More accurate, representative local information can really improve the breadth of information available about a given area and, in turn, can bolster tourism and business investment. Whether you're looking for a restaurant in Sandton, a concert venue in Soweto, or a car dealership in Bryanston, geo products (such as Google Maps and Maps for Mobile) can help you find the info you need in a visual context.

Already we've seen thousands of South African businesses sign up for our free Local Business Centre, and we're expecting many more in the coming months to take advantage of free advertising, to users who are searching for them by activity or geography. We'll see more and more businesses, especially SMEs, raising their profiles by making information about their services easily accessible.

Street View:

Street View is on the way to South Africa and I expect to see a lot of excitement about this, as South Africans check out all their favourite places, whether it's the Cape coastal routes, Kruger or Newtown.

It's not only about consumers, though. It's yet another online functionality for marketers.

Any business can add an interactive Map or Street View panorama to their business website, making it an even more compelling destination for customers or clients. A property agent, for example, can use the Google Street View API to display all of his or her "for-sale" properties on Google Street View, within his own website, to make his service more attractive to prospective buyers.

Online video:

Online video has reached scale. YouTube is now streaming over a billion videos a day, including long-form content, further blurring the boundaries between TV viewing and Internet activity. There are also increasingly innovative uses of video within marketing campaigns. Video is a very compelling and effective way to deliver a message, and you never know what will become a viral hit.

Search:

Today, the web grows by several billion pages each day--pages that are ever-more complex, dynamic, and interactive. Whilst organising this information becomes more challenging, users' expectations only rise: today people expect the right answer immediately, and in the first result.

At Google, we think we're just scratching the surface of what search engines will be able to do in terms of providing customised, personalised, and relevant results. We are not alone in the quest to organise the web and many other constructive approaches are appearing, such as Bing and Wolfram Alpha.

One of the areas which I think has a lot of promise is search personalisation. The perfect search engine will understand what you meant, not simply what you typed.

News and publishing

Just as there's no single cause for the news industry's current struggles, there's no single solution. News publishers are already experimenting on a number of fronts, working to find new ways to drive more traffic and revenue.

Google is partnering with dozens of publishers to assist in this process: we've recently launched experiments such as Living Stories, which collects coverage of an event on one dynamic page, and Google Fast Flip, to provide online news consumers with a "magazine-like" experience. Google is also exploring technology solutions to make paid content systems more seamless for publishers and users, such as subscription services and billing platforms.

In 2010, I expect to see Google's continued commitment to working with news publishers to ensure that journalism thrives online.