10 CRUCIAL CONSUMER TRENDS FOR 2010

trendwatching.com has released their latest report. Here’s a quick summary of the 10 trends:

  1. Business as unusual
  2. Urbany
  3. Real-time reviews
  4. (F)luxury
  5. Mass Mingling
  6. Eco-easy
  7. Tracking & alerting
  8. Embedded generosity
  9. Profile myning
  10. Maturialism
View the full report online or Download the PDF version.

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.

Rumors are flying that the Mac mini may be on its way out. Such rumors seem to indicate that the mini will either go away, or see a refresh. Let’s hope it is the latter.

The Mac mini not only needs a specs refresh, it needs a refocusing of it’s market position. Rather than being marketed as ‘the underpowered Mac for people too cheap to buy a real Mac’, it should be celebrated for its BYODKM (Bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse) heritage.

First off, Apple needs to build the next Mini in line with its improving stance on environmental considerations. Once the manufacturing story has a ‘Greener’ tinge, then the Mac mini can finally become the recycle-reuse-green-machine it almost is. They also needs to make it truly powerful enough to be worthy of the “Mac” prefix.

In addition, Apple could use its website to help build a community for DIYers looking for ways to locate peripherals from the vast array of hardware that’s already out there. This could be as simple as creating an online catalog that help customers connect with local computer recycling centers and similar sources for cheap/free monitors, keyboards, and mice.

Continuously churning out improved machines every few quarters is what keeps Apple products ahead of the cool-curve. But there’s definitely a niche to be served by bringing the latest Mac OS to people who would prefer the modestly smaller carbon footprint offered by using pre-owned peripherals.

One more thing, let’s not rule out an unexpected scenario like the Mac mini being cross-bred with Apple TV or something.

Feel the need to track some tweets? Get your twitter analytics fix, by using these handy web-based tools…

  1. Twitter Grader gives you a grade based on the power of your Twitter profile.
  2. Twinfulence: a simple tool using the Twitter API to to measure the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus.
  3. TweetStats helps you graph your Twitter Stats including: Tweets per hour; Tweets per month; Tweet timeline; Reply statistics
  4. TwitGraph analyzes your tweets and presents the data in pie-chart form
  5. Twitstat - Real time Twitter Analytics
  6. Twitter Quotient will get your Twitter stats (# friends, #updates) and calculate your Twitter profile standing
  7. Twist - see trends in twitter in comparison line chart format
  8. Tweetrush is a service that aims to provide estimated stats on Twitter usage over a period of time via many attractive bar charts
  9. Twitter meter let’s you query an index of all the words that have been sent to twitter’s public timeline (since late 2007) and plot the number of times that word was used over time.
  10. TweetVolume is a useful tool for tracking the usage volume, of specific keywords or phrases, in the twit-osphere

LogoLounge.Com recently posted an insightful article covering their observations on 2008 logo trends. They have organized examples into 15 trend themes:

  1. Supernova
  2. Fine Line
  3. FoldOver
  4. Global Expansion
  5. Loops
  6. Jawbreakers
  7. Strobe
  8. Nimbus
  9. Stitch
  10. Colorblind
  11. Amoeba
  12. Facets
  13. Doodles
  14. Flourish
  15. Fibrous
Read their full report to see the various examples of logo designs.
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