The Slippery Science of Trend Prediction
According to the New York Times, emarketer, Trendhunter, and all the hundreds of other prediction bibles online, 2010 is going to be the year of the T. Well, interesting things starting with T anyway … social networking website Twitter, the colour Turqiose, and, ahem, Thai-Latin fusion food.
I thought Twitter was 2009’s trend pediction. Well, it was. But it is back again, and still trending. In the US only, where emarketer.com has crunched the numbers, Twitter’s users numbered 6 million in 2008 … and tripled to 18 million in 2009. Next year, 26 million users are expected to tweet at least once a month … that’ll be up to 15% of all adult internet users in the States. The big 2010 question is, what is the actual business being built from twitter? And will 2010 be the year we understand what that is?
When it comes to fashion, 2010 fashion sees turquoise as the colour to be seen in. Um, wasn’t that around in 2009, too? Apparently, people are craving “escapism” and a “holiday feel”, and the colour turqoise on body, feet, fingers and, well, the walls of your living room, evokes that definite 2010 feeling. Um, what the!?
And what on earth is Thai-Latin Fusion? Or Latin-Italian? Or (priceless) streetcart-Latin fusion? Have we just run out of stuff that’s trendy?
Trend prediction is a big industry. Knowing what is going to be the hottest toy for Christmas in 2010, or the top tech gadget of 2011, is the elusive holy grail of mob mentality trend hunting.
So I’d like you to give me a few thoughts on what you think is going to be 2010’s Top 5 Trends.
I’ll start;
More simple, uncluttered blogs and websites with a focus on clean typography
The explosion of handmade accessories
Sharing with social e-networks what you used to share with group emails
The rise of the no-booking restaurant (yuck)
Australian Market to finally embrace e-books, Kindle, etc
Go on and list yours below …. remember, trends can already exist but not be hugely popular yet.