Becoming a Media Guru is not easy. Knowing how to predict future trends in the tech world can make you big money at companies like Google and Facebook. We here at Infolinks challenged all of you in recent weeks to test your skills and predict what will be the tech trends of 2014 in the “Infolinks Media Guru Challenge”, giving the winner of the competition double earnings for the month of January.
The challenge itself was pretty easy: tweet us at @InfolinksInc an app, social network, tech product, search term, how to question or even keyword that you think will shape 2014. The results: Dozens of submissions from Infolinkers all across the world all trying to guess what will be the tech trends of 2014.
Top Tech Trends of 2014
User Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) has been thrown around in the marketing world for several years now, but UGC is thought to be one of the biggest tech trends of 2014. With the emergence of Vine, Instagram and Snapchat, brands are looking to generate brand affinity and increase conversions by incorporating UGC into commercial experiences throughout 2014. Jigar Pandya (@JigarPandyaa) also thinks that 2014 will be the year of UGC:
3D Printing
3D printers made it into the news quite often during 2013. However, not many printers made it into the hands of consumer. Meanwhile, 3D printers as cheap as $100 are hitting the market and mainstream companies like HP, Samsung and Microsoft might attempt to break into the 3D printing market. Our Infolinks media guru’s also touched this leading tech trend of 2014 with Mike Raja (@generatorland) predicting 3D printing will change the way we eat:
Smart Home Tech
Home automation is proving to be a top home improvement trend, making the Jetsons’ futuristic lifestyle realistic than ever before. Some experts are predicting 2014 will be the year of the smart home in three main areas: Energy management, Cooking and Security. Devi Iriawan (@deviiriawan) combined two tech trends of 2014 in his prediction: smart home teach and 3D printing in his predication about which “how to” questions will trend in 2014:
Wearble Tech
From connected socks and bras to baby clothing, these computers, disguised as accessories or apparel are maybe the most talked about tech trend of 2014, particularly fitness devices and healthcare gadgets. Twitvenezuela, one of our top Latin America Infolinkers, predicted that the top wearable tech product, Google Glass, will break away in 2014:
(Translation: Google Glass will provide a lot to talk about in 2014, in fact it’s the year of the launch and we’ll see a lot of buyers/purchases).
The Top Tech Trend for 2014: Social TV
Like UGC, Social TV has been buzzing for several years now. But with Smart TV shipments expected to reach 123 million in 2014, and all the big players are going in, it looks like 2014 will be the breakout year for Social TV. Companies like Apple, AOL, Comcast, Direct TV and even FOX spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Social TV startups in 2013. That’s why the winner of Infolinks’ Media Guru challenge is Sea of Savings (@Seaofsavings) that predicted that TV and Social will finally meet in 2014:
We thank all of you Infolinkers for taking part in our challenge! 2013 was an amazing year for Infolinks and with all of you with us, we are sure that 2014 will be even better. Want to stay up to date with all the tech trends of 2014? Be sure to follow Infolinks on Facebook, Twitter and Google+