259 days until PICNIC09

PICNIC 08 speakers talked a lot about the trends and developments they are seeing in the world and what this means for (cross media) businesses. PICNIC has now summarized these into the top 10 PICNIC trends, in no particular order.

1. Balance - fun versus important: There was much talk about having reached saturation point in terms of sharing our lives online. Which sharing services are actually adding real value to our personal lives and take less of a chunk out of our valuable time. Most of these sites are fun but not important. 2009 will be a year for services that help people balance life and work, pleasure and profession, off-line and on-line.

2. Transparency and conversation: Some call it Feedback 3.0 or joining the conversation rather than listening quietly. Companies are being required to react not just listen to consumers. 2009 will be a year of transparency by companies and loyalty being driven by interacting/conversing with consumers.

3. Openness: More and more services online are opening up and linking with other online services, for instance in the social networking space. As companies realize they do not own people and their data, the owner of the data is the person themselves and they have a right to decide what is done with their data. 2009 will be a year of consolidation in social networking and microblogging and opening up of platforms, so users can use one login and move their ...