Speed Summary: Mashable’s 8 Need-to-Know Digital Trends for 2012 – 8 Opportunities for Social Commerce

So it’s that post-turkey/thanksgiving time again when we’re not only digesting birds but also pundit predictions on what the coming year will hold for us in terms of digital trends.  This year Mashable’s CEO Pete Cashmore kicked off the prediction season early with 8 need-to-know digital media trends, and 3 ‘megatrends’ for 2012 in a half-hour video. So here’s a summary of the 8 need-to-know media trends, with 8 need-to-act opportunities for social commerce.

• Megatrend 1: ‘Touch’ – the world goes touch crazy (with Windows playing catchup with touch-centric Windows 8); if you can’t swipe, pinch or tap to read, watch, or listen, you won’t be reading, watching or listening.  Touch is not a nice-to-have it’s your price-t0-play
• Opportunity for Social commerce? Think gestures and bricks, not clicks; make social gestures tactile and embed them in the physical world
• Megatrend 2: ‘Apps’ – digital media will become app-centric in 2012, with software wrapped in apps (increasingly built in HTML5), and “web marketing giving way to app marketing”
• Opportunity for Social commerce? We have social commerce apps already (think shopkick), but no killer-apps apps yet, so there’s all to play for. The Web may not be dead yet, but focus 2012 efforts on building social commerce apps on Facebook, iOS and Android
• Megatrend 3: ‘NFC’ – outside the media industry, Near Field Communications will be everywhere to interact and transact frictionlessly, pushing relevant, geo-local content to our devices
• Implication for Social Commerce? Dust down those old shop-and-share start-ups; did they head to the dead-pool too soon?  Think contextually relevant in-store information and promotions, pay-pass becomes pay-and-share pass?

8 Digital Media Trends for 2012 – and Opportunities for Social Commerce

1. News Aggregation Apps – (Flipboard, Flipboard, Pulse, Zite, Edition, Livestand) Convenience is king, as smart software filters our the digital jetsam and flotsams and curates the cool stuff.
• Opportunity for Social Commerce?  Beyond ‘engagement’ and brand puffery, smart social commerce will aggregate and curate category news to help shoppers shop smarter with timely and relevant information.
2. Magazine apps – The rise of distribution channels (Apple Newstand) and publishing software (Adobe Publishing Suite) mean subscription-based digital magazine publishing will take off in 2012
• Opportunity for Social Commerce?   ‘Read, Share and Buy’ – is there an opportunity to publish, sponsor or partner with a next-generation consumer magazine; with share and buy gestures built-in?
3. Beyond iPad – No longer a one-horse race, tablets such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire will broaden the user-base of tablets and accelerate the relative decay of PC based bandwidth
• Opportunity for Social Commerce? Tablet-based social commerce apps.  Still doing social commerce for the home PC – that’s so 2010.
4. Social Gestures – “It’s all about Facebook” and “frictionless sharing”, automatically sharing what we read, like, watch – not on Facebook canvas apps, but via the Open Graph
• Opportunity for Social Commerce? Using Facebook to help people connect where they shop and shop where they connect, with respect for privacy and ‘elective sharing’
5. TV Everywhere – the Web doesn’t eat TV, TV eats the Web, with live TV everywhere – online, on mobile, on tablets
• Opportunity for Social Commerce? Using social to turn live TV consumption into product consumption with fan-stores and watch-chat-buy plugins
6. Second Screen Experiences – Watch TV on one screen, interact on another with associated app
• Opportunity for Social Commerce? Social apps to drive audiences to stores; event-based commerce with show tie-ins.  If you haven’t seen the Syzygy Goab project – see video below for inspiration
7. TV and Movie Marketing Apps – Turning passive consumption into an active, participatory experience
• Opportunity for Social Commerce? More social ticketing and movie and TV merchandise fan-stores
8. Social Music – Spotify becomes a model for music discovery and consumption
• Opportunity for Social Commerce? Social recommender systems based on music tastes – social media fan stores for bands as well as brands; fan-first merchandise, tickets, and live-events