Social Media Trends to Watch in 2012

You're probably thinking 2011 has been a mega year for new digital media products, tools and trends - and you're right, it has been. But the experts have been sifting through the tea leaves and it looks like there are some big trends on the horizon in the 12 months ahead. At the recent Media Summit in New York City, Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore outlined some of the bigger social media trends he thought could be looming around the corner for 2012.

• The "touch" trend is the "mega trend" in computing right now. Watch for it in 2012. OSX Lion and Windows 8 are clearly being designed in line with the current popularity of "touch".

• Eight clear trends will grow or emerge in 2012 (see below)

The "touch" trend will be the "mega trend" of 2012: Pete Cashmore.

Trend 1. News Aggregation Apps.

Flipboard. More news aggregators. Zite, Pulse. Editions by AOL. Livestand. Another brand new news aggregator. All these aim to give a more personalized experience. The good news on all these iPad apps; they're easier to monetize, much easier than the web. The challenge for media companies. You don't control the distribution. "you don't own the shell".

Trend 2. Magazine Apps

Mag apps are now cropping up using the Adobe publishing suite. Good examples include Glamour, Wired, Vanity Fair. The magazine business model for tablets is "subscriptions", made possible by recent launch of Apple's Newsstand. Conde Nast is a reporting a 268 per cent increase in magazine subscriptions, thanks to app publishing.

Trend 3. Beyond the iPad

At just $199 Amazon's new Kindle Fire is a tablet that undercuts the iPad. A lot of customers are going to move onto this cheaper tablet. Kindle Fire offers similar experience to iPad. It features magazines, movies and TV, a book store, music. Another potential rival is the Nook Colour 2. Won't cause Apple too many headaches but provides an alternative none-the-less.

Trend 4: Social gestures.

This is all about Facebook and the idea of "frictionless sharing". This means any action on the web can be automatically shared on your profile. "Virtually any verb, you can share it to Facebook". Watch, listen, read. A number of media organizations such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have developed "canvas apps" for social sharing on Facebook. The key thing is, everything you read will be shared with your friends. But the problem is. EVERYTHING you read is getting shared, which may lead to privacy issues. As a media company do you want this kind of experience association with your brand?

Trend 5: TV Everywhere.

You have a cable subscription and you can also get live TV on all your other devices. Watch TV on your phone. Time Warner on comcast,CNN live TV on your laptop, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.

Trend 6: Second Screen Experiences.

Interact on your devices while watching live TV. We're really aware people are multi-tasking now.  Disney has Bambi and Lion King second screen experience apps. They load up photo galleries, content to engage with, colour in a picture. MTV has "Watchwith", featuring popular MTV shows, the app allows you to engage with shows as you're watching. Get more information. Bravo Now works on the same principle. NBC Live, watch all the top NBC shows, engage via the app.

Trend 7: TV and Movie Marketing Apps

Movie and TV studios are now trying to figure out how to get in front of audiences and generate "buzz" around their content. Web marketing is giving way to app marketing. Angry Birds Rio is a good example. An app based on Paramount film Super 8 turns your iPhone into a Super 8 camera and has been hugely popular. HSN (Home Shopping Network has developed a popular game called Diner Dash, with special levels and special content. We're talking apps as new distribution channel, we're talking about touch experience, we're talking about social experience.

Trend 8: Social music.

The Spotify, Moggs, RDO's of the world. They're integrating with the "social gestures" The business model is subscription music. They're around but haven't become the dominant model. "All you can eat music" is yet to prove itself. Coldplay and Adele aren't on Spotify and it may be because of the economics. Artists may not be getting the revenue they need or want.

Stuff Pete would like to see in 2012 (but which probably won't happen)

HTML5

One of the biggest questions for publishers right now is "Which device are you going to built for?" HTML5 is a universal way to build once, build for all devices. If you build an HTM5 app, you can put a "wrapper" around it to customize for other devices.

Car Apps

Apps updating themselves to deal with in-car systems. Ford has a car app. Interesting way to provide new ways to serve content.

Flexible displays

Roll-able/bendable displays. Nokia has a new display you can bend, roll and twist. What if you could have a physical magazine with a digital screen? A newspaper?

Apple/Internet TV

All your entertainment is up in the cloud and works on your ITV. Apple may do it next year

Geo-Location

Location-based news may come into its own next year. News pushed to you, based on where you are.

Media via NFC (near field communication).

This is about paying for goods and services using your phone. See "Google Wallet". What does it mean for media companies? What if you could push content to phones when people check in or make a transaction?

Information courtesy of OurNews (News Corporation) and Mashable Media.