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2013 Web Technology Review & Get Ready for 2014

To help you start 2014 properly armed and running at full speed, here is a look-back at the top 10 key technology trends we shared with you in 2013 via Twitter, along with some tips to help you ensure a successful and prosperous New Year for you and your organization.

Get-Ready-for-2014

  1. Your Website fuels your business, and Web speed rules. The growth of ecommerce is expected to outpace sales growth at brick-and-mortar stores over the next five years, reaching $370 billion by 2017! Just in Q3 alone, US Consumers spent $5.3 billion with e-retailers, a 14.6% jump in Q3, and 44% of B2B firms report larger orders via ecommerce. In addition, there are terrific opportunities across regions everywhere you look. Just China ecommerce in one day alone, November 11, was a multi-billion-dollar business, and in Canada 79% of shoppers were going online for back-to-school shopping. Regardless of what vertical you are in, your Website showcases your products and services to the world, and brings valuable marketing leads to your organization. Consequently, Website speed impacts your business, and every second counts. For example, a 60% faster Obama Fundraising Website~drove a $34.7 million gain and Best Buy raced to get its~Website~up to speed to boost growth. Similarly, Web speed is a must for SEO.~
    • Tip: On-going Web performance optimization should be part of your culture in 2014

     

  2. User Expectations are more sophisticated than ever. 67% of consumers will abandon a~Website~if it’s too slow (National Retail Federation). Similarly, if your Web pages load in 3 seconds or more, 57% of visitors will leave (Akamai). Moreover, users will visit less a~Website~if it is 250 milliseconds slower than a competitor (New York Times). 2013 also brought the new marketing frontier via targeted geo-based mobile marketing where retailers communicate with consumers via their phones while they’re at the store or in the vicinity of a retailer.
    • Tip: Just like your marketing counterparts, get more sophisticated in your monitoring by measuring Web performance from multiple nodes, closer to your users.

     

  3. Social Media dominates. We saw the power of Social Media in 2013. Just one single tweet sent Apple shares soaring. And here are a couple of interesting stats we shared with you via Twitter: 31% of users will vent in Social Media about poor service and 60% of Web users~are influenced more by customer~comments than star ratings reviewers provide.
    • Tip: Monitor Web speed for product review pages and key corporate Social Media channels this upcoming year

    social-media

  4. The rise of rapid Agile development adoption. As organizations were looking for ways to accelerate application~delivery, improve quality and grow revenue, the DevOps function emerged in 2013. In the quest for agility, lack of formal development processes was widespread across organizations, and QA cycles and testing time was reduced across the board.
    • Tip: Continuously monitor that production applications are working as designed, and go deep into your code to rapidly find underperforming components in real-time

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  5. Mobile has revolutionized the Internet: It became official in 2013: mobile~surpassed PCs in online retail. Today, there are 7.15 billion people living on earth, 2.4 billion Internet users across the globe, and 6.6 billion mobile subscription, a 40% increase in 2013. ~Mobile represents 20% of Internet traffic globally (StatCounter). In fact, in India, 61% of Internet traffic is coming from mobile devices, and 16% of all US shopping this holiday season is expected from mobile~devices.
    • Tip: Monitor both Web and mobile transactions in your Website to ensure customer satisfaction

     

  6. The technology job market will continue to grow. An astonishing 1.7 million cloud-related jobs were unfilled in 2012, and the trend continued in 2013. Likewise, Jobs for IT~Sysadmins are expected to grow 28% between now and 2020, twice the average rate. Similarly, software developers are expected to see the highest job growth in 2020, and the rate of IT employment growth continues to accelerate, especially in the areas of cloud, big data and mobile.
    • Tip: Polish your cloud computing, mobile and Big Data skills for 2014

     

  7. Your Website is much more than a shopping cart. In 2013 consumers checked~Websites before, after & while at the store.~In fact, 88% of consumers "web room" or screen online and buy in a store. Similarly, 70% of mobile searches are followed up by consumer action in 1 hour.
    • Tip: Monitor catalog and search functions in addition to shopping carts

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  8. Big Data is here to stay. Big Data was #1 priority for CIOs~in 2013. Even marketers saw value in Big Data, and this trend will continue as more organizations look to unlock the power of Big Data next year.
    • Tip: Monitor the underlying infrastructure that supports your Big Data initiatives

     

  9. The cloud is a reality from SMBs to enterprise organizations. 75% of CEOs saw value in cloud computing (2013 McKinsey survey). Moreover, 70% of enterprises will be pursuing a hybrid cloud~strategy by 2015, and cloud computing will become the bulk of new IT spend by 2016.
    • Tip: Ensure your application performance monitoring strategy is cloud-ready and delivered as SaaS from the cloud

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  10. Website security is still a concern. Internet Watch Foundation reported an increase in Websites hacked since June 2013, and according to Ponemon Institute, 72% of Webmasters apply little or no security. Are you one of the new 30,000~Websites identified every day as distributing malicious code to visitors (Sophos Lab)?
    • Tip: Continuously monitor your Website content accuracy to detect hackers faster

 

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