Top 5 Consumer Trends

Courtesy of one my favourite newsletters, trendwatching.com, are the top five themes on their radar. All are relevant to libraryland--make sure you go to the site and read the complete report. And why not subscribe to the trend briefing?

1. Status Lifestyles
"[A]s mature consumer societies are increasingly dominated by (physical) abundance, by saturation, by experiences, by virtual worlds, by individualism, by participation, by feelings of guilt and concern about the side-effects of unbridled consumption, status is to be had in many more ways than leading a somewhat dated lifestyle centered on hoarding as many branded, luxury goods as possible."

2. Transparency Tyranny
"As camera and video phones are becoming both ubiquitous and more powerful, reviews of anything and everything will go multimedia. The impact? Well, a picture says more than a thousand words, and a video says more than a thousand pictures ;-) EVERYTHING brands do or don’t do will end up on youtube.com, or on an undoubtedly soon to be launched youtube-clone dedicated to product reviews."

3. Web N+1
"if you feel the online world is evolving so fast that it’s hard to tell your web 0.2 from your web 2.0— tough luck! 2007 will see a broad debate on what constitutes web 3.0, web 4.0 and who knows, even web 5.0. So while the web 2.0’s user-generated avalanche will continue, we’re going to hear and obsess (again) about the Mobile Web, the Internet of Things, INFOLUST, Exploding TV, the Metaverse and so on...Quick tip: start by (re)reading everything by Kevin Kelly, who has been correct in predicting the Next Big Online Thing over and over again. When it comes to the shift from offline to online, the predications are out there, we haven’t seen anything yet, and you have no excuse not to know about it."

4. Trysumers
"Hate the name, love the trend. TRYSUMERS incorporates transient, experienced consumers who are becoming more daring in how they consume, due to a myriad of (sometimes) unrelated societal and technological changes. Here’s our beta-definition:
TRYSUMERS: 'Freed from the shackles of convention and scarcity, immune to most advertising, and enjoying full access to information, reviews, and navigation, experienced consumers are trying out new appliances, new services, new flavors, new authors, new destinations, new artists, new relationships, new *anything* with post mass-market gusto.' "

5. The Global Brain
"[A]ll of the world’s intelligence and experience, fully networked, incorporating not only the usual suspects like gurus, professors and scientists, but the experiences and skills of hundreds of millions of smart consumers as well. With the 'shortage of talent' that every brand on every continent seems to fear in 2007, tapping into THE GLOBAL BRAIN seems a, well, no-brainer. This year, expect many corporations, small and big, to aggressively court the 1% of most creative and experienced individuals roaming the globe."