5 innovations that will make the web smarter and more social

IEEE Spectrum has just released a special report on the battle for the future of the social Web. One of the must-reads from this report is 5 Technologies That Will Shape the Web:

1. The Mobile Web Will Be a Smarter Web: "The powerful blend of mobile and social capabilities will inspire new products and services and become the foundation for new ways to work, shop, and entertain ourselves. The key element propelling this transformation? Context." Examples: Facebook Places, Google Latitude, Foursquare, Gowalla.
2. Video Is Poised to Inundate the Web: "the Web is enhancing the social nature of video. We love to talk about what we watch—some people now tweet in front of the TV during shows and sports—and we love to recommend things to one another." Example: Facebook's streaming movies for rent offer, starting with The Dark Knight in March.
3. Everyday Objects Will Join Our Social Networks: "the Internet of Things is finally taking shape, thanks to ever cheaper electronics, improvements in wireless technologies, and the availability of DIY electronics like the Arduino, a popular open-source microcontroller."
4. Web Data Will Explode, and That's a Good Thing: "A large fraction of today's data consists of Web pages that companies like Google can crawl, process, and present to users when needed. In the future, however, users will consume and produce ever more data in near real time. The new data will come in great part from the social Web." Examples: Google MapReduce, Cloudera.
5. Voice and Gestures Will Change Human-Computer Interaction: "Experts say the latest innovations in natural interfaces provide a glimpse of a fast-approaching future in which people will interact with the Web very differently—not only by typing and touching but also by talking and gesticulating before our devices." Example: Microsoft Kinect.
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