Top 5 Web Trends of 2009

According to ReadWriteWeb, a blog that provides analyses of web products and trends, the 5 biggest web trends of 2009 are: structured data, the real-time web, personalization, mobile web/augmented reality, and the internet of things. The internet of things, also the final part of the series, is a network of Internet-enabled objects, together with web services, that interact with these objects. Technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification), sensors, and smartphones are within the network of the internet of things. Among the future, more sophisticated technologies that will be among the internet of things network, the internet fridge is probably the most discussed. The internet fridge is a refrigerator that tracks the food inside it and notifies when products are running low; the internet fridge may even gather recipes and create shopping lists for its users.

The most important part of this new technology is not the novelty of an internet fridge, but how these technologies will enable users to maintain a healthier lifestyle. For example, products will have their own RFID tags, which will tell the buyer when it was produced and packaged (as opposed to just trusting the use and sell by stamps) and what the precise ingredients are and associated health benefits (as opposed to merely trusting the contents labels.)


For more analyses of web products and trends, visit http://www.readwriteweb.com/. To read the New York Times article by Richard Macmanus on the internet of things, visit http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/09/11/11readwriteweb-top-5-web-trends-of-2009-internet-of-things-98888.html.