Three ways the web can bring your idea to life in 2017
The year that stretches ahead of us is one filled with opportunity. For those looking to expand their business and embrace growth, the relentless expansion of the internet (both mobile and desktop) provides some essential platforms for creating, testing and promoting your next big idea.
Online collaboration is the new email
Let’s face it, email is dead. It’s only real function is for cold-calling and spam (the other cold-calling!).
With video calls, online documents and tracked conversations, collaboration software such as Slack and Confluence are redefining the way we work across the office and around the world. Unsurprisingly, as this change continues to wash through our modern workplaces, Microsoft office is building more collaboration features into its software, and even Facebook is having a crack at its own platform.
Regardless of what you choose, they all allow you to work in small groups, to keep track of product versions, and to easily monitor and review the development process.
Test your product.
In recent years, the web has provided the perfect place to test the viability of your idea: crowdfunding. Sites such as kickstarter and indegogo allow you to not only validate the idea, but also the way that you communicate it to potential investors.
A couple of northern-NSW honey farmers are the perfect example of this process. Honeyflow addresses the long-standing problem of how to easily extract honey from a beehive. Once potential investors realised the elegance of the solution, the money just kept rolling through the door.
Video is about to explode
It’s been coming for a while, but 2017 could be the year that streaming video goes mainstream. Not only is Snapchat becoming dominant in the social media space, but Facebook is throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at its ‘Live’ offering by pushing the content to the top of your newsfeed.
However, the key to successful video is telling an interesting story. How often have you shut off a piece of video within ten seconds because it was an obvious ad or simply boring?
These are just three examples of the way we will work with the web through product development and marketing over the next 12 months. What next year looks like – as the 5G mobile network commences testing – is anyone’s guess!