by Oluwatobi Soyombo

Pastors, Bishops, Priests prophesy especially at the end of a year. All a tech writer can do is to predict. I wish I can use those prefix clergy men use before letting out their predictions for the New Year, but I’m no clergy man. However, I can still predict.

The tech community witnessed numerous developments in 2011. Now, 2011 is rounding up.  Today, we’ll pip into 2012 and check out a few of the things we can expect.

1.         More Social Media: In 2011, there were lots of companies who added Facebook and twitter to their customer service tool list. We saw a couple of them responding to customer complaints and helping their customers out. This won’t be different in 2012, except for the fact that the figures will increase. We’ll see more companies turn to Facebook, twitter and other social media platforms (especially where their target audience hang out the most) as a way of keeping up with the customers. I make bold to say that companies that have no social media presence by the end of 2012 are likely to be ignored by a certain group of customers.

2.         Increased mobile networks: In 2011, Nigeria was announced as Africa’s largest mobile market. I can’t but expect Nigeria to retain this position, looking at the insatiable thirst of Nigerians for mobile appliances. Ranging from Blackberry to the droids, Nigerians will continue to demand for mobile tools, for one primary reason – to connect and stay connected with their friends and families. We’ll see more and more people access the web via mobile devices, just like we saw in 2011.

3.         Quality content: this is a global trend. Everyone in the universe has been predicting this for 2012. Quality content will determine how you’re ranked on search engines, especially Google that has been restructuring their algorithms to ensure that sites with quality content rank higher than sites without it. Asides this quality content also determine how many visitors will make repeat visits to your site afterwards. So, if you want to earn high ranking on search engines and at the same time want to see massive visits on your site/blog in 2012, you’ll have to focus on providing quality, useful information/content.

4.         More video content: With the launch of a dedicated YouTube platform for Nigeria, we’ll see more video content roll to the internet. Recently, I was informed that Google is partnering with Nollywood actors and others in the entertainment industry to boost the new Nigerian YouTube. While this is a great move, I must also say that it won’t be the only driver of video content on the net. Individuals will begin to upload all kinds of videos to the new YouTube. – ranging from short videos of birthday parties and the likes to quality videos. In 2012, there’ll be an increase in the demand for video content.

The only threat to this is the “plug and pray” connection many still have access to. If the connection speed does increase nationwide in 2012 then, this will happen almost smoothly.

5.         Deals, Deals, Deals: The likes of Google Trader, Deal Fish, and other classified ad portal for consumer products should be ready to receive massive visits in the coming year. It is funny to see cheaper deals on the internet than offline. Stores, with the knowledge that the internet community is a very competitive one, especially in terms of product pricing, have been putting low prices whenever they post ads on sites like deal fish, while retaining the high prices in their shops. This is funny, but this trend will continue in 2012 and gain more popularity.

Oluwapelumi