According to a study by the high-tech association Bitkom (Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media), the number of Internet users in the United States has exceeded the threshold of 75 percent of the population. Already two years after the frequency distribution, some 15 million American households are now available with LTE. Already 40 per cent of all households are now supplied with Internet connections of at least 50Mbit / s.
Mobile devices on the rise
This modern high-speed infrastructure provides a suitable environment for Internet-based services and solutions and new web development needs for the growing variety of desktops, tablets and smartphones, as well as entertainment electronics for the living room.
Responsive Design
The number of Internet connections is growing steadily, but nowadays this does not automatically mean that the terminal must always be a PC. According to analysts, the number of PCs required will rise linearly - simply because the population in Europe, Asia and the USA is also growing. Nevertheless, PC development in 2013 will be overshadowed by the growth of mobile devices.
Unusual resolution density
Computers are no longer the preferred gateway to the web. Web designers are increasingly confronted with a variety of different display sizes with the most varied resolution densities. In the meantime, the transitions between individual device categories have become fluid and web designers are less likely to make firm assumptions.
Integration of social networks
A device with a 13-inch display can be a small laptop, a netbook, a tablet or possibly a game console. Browsersniffing is too vague in this environment and is therefore a thing of the past.
For this reason, it is expected that websites will be increasingly responsive in order to flexibly address a wider range of display sizes and resolution densities. Pixel-based websites suffer from various usability problems, from horizontal scrolling to far too small buttons, and help users scale up text in older versions of Internet Explorer. As a solution to these challenges, responsive design with elastic images and elastic videos is advertised using @media-queries.
Web design in em units requires cumbersome calculations and so only the fewest web designers can heat themselves on individual projects. The new elastic unit rem (root em) is intended to provide a remedy since it sets the font size as a percentage of the root size. Whether this unit is enforced is still open.
However, it is clear that theme creators for WordPress, Joomla and Co. are increasingly using responsive layouts with media queries and elastic units based on the "mobile first" principle. A good example is the WordPress theme Meola of the agency Elmastudio.
In addition to elastic images, this theme also uses rem units. If elastic layouts are used, the back door
is used
More and more smartphones like the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 shine with high-resolution touch-screen displays. The same goes for tablets and laptops like Apple's MacBook Pro. Instead of 96 dpi in mobile devices, a resolution density of 200 dpi is virtually the order of the day.
The third-generation iPad does not even need to be compared to a desktop PC thanks to its high pixel density with the resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 pixels. Thanks to the retina pixel density of 264 pixels per inch, the resolution of 2.048 x 1.536 pixels is now packed into a high-quality 9.5-inch retina display. The pixel resolution of an iPad would have been possible some time ago on a 27-inch screen close.
However, this high pixel density requires special optimization of the resolution of images on a web page. Web sites that are not optimized tend to be slightly out of focus on these so-called HiDPI displays. In addition, the standard behavior of Webkit browsers further degrades the quality of the images, as the browser first downscodes the pixel dimensions of large images and then zooms them up again.
Websites must therefore compensate for these undesirable effects. Workarounds such as the use of SVG graphics, progressive jpegs and / or sprites are increasingly used here. Instead of pixel-based buttons, CSS-based navigation elements are now often used, which easily scale to the required pixel density.
Signing up social identities
Web designers need to take more consideration in the future on mobile devices without delivering a smartphone edition of the page to tablets. Tablet computers are increasingly popular among consumers. Webkit is currently the dominant browser engine.
All of these developments promote the spread of HTML5 with CSS3 and Javascript as the preferred technology platform for websites as well as a preferred subset for mobile apps. Website layouts are increasingly reminiscent of high-gloss images and surprise with sophisticated, decent, purposeful interactivity.
Social status as currency
Web sites are increasingly turning into complex web applications with sophisticated interactivity and extended ways to communicate with friends, acquaintances and unknowns.
According to Bitkom, nearly three-quarters of all Internet users in the United States (strictly speaking, 74 per cent) are registered in at least one social network, with two out of three actively involved. As the most popular social network is Facebook, because there is every second American Internet users to be found. "The use of social networks has long become a mass phenomenon," says Bitkom President Ralph Haupter.
In social networks, users spend most of the time, almost every fourth minute (64 percent more than a year before). According to a survey conducted by the market research company Comscore, Facebook is now claiming more than 16 percent of the online time of American Internet users.
Mobile apps and digital publishing
New payment systems
Conclusion
With a share of 12 percent of the online time Google with the services like the search, Gmail, Youtube and GooglePlus hardly the place. In place of three and with 5 percent somewhat stronger, Microsoft is with the services Bing, MSN and Hotmail. Websites used this trend by incorporating the social networking APIs to hand-out their own services to extend some social networking features.
In order to provide visitors with a more comfortable and, if possible, registration-free registration, operators of various online services increasingly rely on the APIs of social networks to identify their users. For example, the service laterbro.com offers its users the option of signing up via Twitter or Facebook, but no way to register with an e-mail address (presumably because the latter of these methods would be used anyway.)
The trend towards social identification is also taking place in websites and blogs. Website visitors who wish to participate in a discussion using their existing social identities can easily fall back on one of their social identities. Site operators are increasingly expanding the functionality of their own website with the help of the appropriate APIs to include some features of the leading social networks.
Typically, these are features for commenting on contributions or logging on to users with their respective social identity. How much the visitors appreciate the additional comfort is, for example, the fact that users of Pheed.com choose half a login via Twitter and half a login via Facebook, hardly anyone registers with their own e-mail address.
The fact that social networks through recommendation plug-ins, embedded commentary and the like now penetrate almost the entire Internet, should lead to further foreseeable consequences in the near future.
On the one hand, it should lead to the end of anonymity. The price of convenience is the loss of privacy. On the other hand, the Internet is increasingly growing around the different social networks. The limits of the websites are blurred from the perspective of users who can register with their social identity almost anywhere.
As a side-effect of these developments, several independent websites and blogs grow into a huge discussion forum. As a result, the leading social networks gain market relevance and are already making the first attempts to convert their user numbers into cash.
While the anonymity of Internet activity is nearing its end, the social networks are cautiously trying to read their users like an open book and monetize the information obtained. Many companies seem to have recognized the growing popularity of social networks as a lasting trend.
Almost half of American companies use social networks, blogs, short news services or content platforms for videos or photos. One third of all companies in the United States are active in Facebook with their own site.
In the future, the number and quality of its Google-Plus friendships, Facebook friends or Twitter followers is likely to determine the purchasing power of a single consumer. Already today, Internet users can pay for a winning chance with a tweet or a Facebook recommendation for a lottery in a variety of raffles.
In future, users with the greatest impact on the opinion of others will get the best service, the first deliveries, the most bonus points and the most interesting discounts.
Many website owners are trying to expand their free information offer on the web, either to add premium content behind a pay wall, or to expand paid content through a magazine app in the leading app markets such as Apple's Newsstand, Google Play and Amazon.
Mobile apps are considered the most important alternative to reading websites in the mobile browser. The digital publishing revolution is still in the children's shoes, but the forecasts are positive. The number of magazine apps sold is comparatively low, but the trend is upwards.
Alone in the United States, smartphone owners download about one billion apps per year. While 88 percent of these apps are currently free, mobile apps can generate revenue in a variety of ways: once through the sales price, then through paid services within the app, and thirdly by advertising within the app.
In 2011, for which statistical data are available, Apps in the United States rose by an impressive 123 percent to 210 million euros (the number of downloaded apps has more than doubled in this period).
Analysts expect a whole wave of innovations in the market for web-enabled payment systems, including so-called micropayments. Micropayments, also known as small amounts or micro payments, are simplified payment methods for settling small amounts. Micropayments are typically used to buy paid content and other digital goods online. Micropayment systems such as Tinypass are clearly coming. Even Paypal has now jumped on the train and offers more favorable micropayment tariffs in the United States for EU transactions.
The so-called social micropayment systems like Flattr or Kachingle follow another approach. These services offer site visitors the opportunity to voluntarily reward content with a symbolic amount. These services pay the participating blogs for their content from a flat-rate monthly subscription proportional to the number of donor clicks of the subscriber.
Google is also now thinking of developing a new, more user-friendly method of payment for micropayments. Google had so far primarily rely on a top position in the search engine business, in order to generate then with placed advertising inserts revenue. Google has also tried to build its own mobile platform with Android OS, and not least by taking over the Motorola Mobility department.
Android OS has helped Google establish itself as one of the most important market players on the Internet. Now the company wants to penetrate new business areas and works under high pressure on a new payment system, the so-called Google Wallet. Google Wallet is designed to allow site operators to conveniently check visitors for access to individual items using near-field communications (NFC).
Google is testing the Internet's willingness to pay with the Wallet project. If the project succeeds, even smaller blogs could almost pay tribute to individual contributions.
It is not yet possible to predict whether this trend will be felt in 2013. However, it is clear that the innovations in the field of more user-friendly online payments open up new possibilities for website operators. Website visitors will benefit from cheaper and more powerful tablets.
All the signs indicate that the year 2013 marks a new beginning in web development. With technologies such as HTML5 with CSS3 and Javascript, powerful social APIs and innovative payment systems with NFC connectivity, major changes are emerging.
No comments:
Post a Comment