Posted by Jonthan

What direction is the web hosting industry headed? Take a look at the massive growth in hosted services and the massive improvements in storage technology. Now consumers of all levels, not just business owners are finding a relevance in hosted services - but the average consumer’s needs are not as demanding as power users, so consequently a variety of hosting services are free. The model I see growing and evolving will be ASP services, online hosted applications, and a future growth in MySpace-like networks. I could forsee the growth of another major network similar but not quite like MySpace that allows mass web users to create self-profiles or resumes of everything they do. Such a site would be powered by a major company like Google most likely or at least bought out. I think the problem with MySpace lies in its clumsiness and ability to let companies create profiles. The amount of spam I get from MySpace and the lack of regulation is so frustrating I generally just keep away from it.

LinkedIn and sites like that may be on the right track, but still are too formal. I think we would need to find a healthy middle-ground and something where its simple and accessible.

I think the traditional notion of a web site could change, and in the future we wouldn’t be as obsessed with the idea of “dot coms” but rather profiles through these networks. Already, you are seeing web companies and individuals gaining more traffic through subdomain hosted services like MySpace, or Blogger or Flickr than on their own self-created dot com addresses. The addresses I think will still serve relevance to promote your externally hosted site, but in the end the sites will be powered by larger networks following templates that people are familiar with.

I forsee in the future, more services being hosted in a P2P format like Kazaa or Skype. This could threaten parts of the hosting industry, but the hosting industry will need to be willing to evolve accordingly and enter into creating these network type sites where hosting services are offered for free in exchange for targeted advertising.

I think the typical monthly fees in standard budget hosting packages will become free and advertising powered. I think they’re becoming so competitive now, for a couple dollars a month you can get powerful powerful packages. Web advertising is also becoming more and more profitable and we’re starting to harness this new tool in a real sense, not just the web impressions model or even the pay-per-click model, but the pay-per-lead model. As hosting becomes free for average web users, the final frontier in terms of making money for a monthly fee would be more high-end services - managed hosting for corporations needing maximum security and full web consulting shops. I think in terms of the advertising, where will those ads appear? on the sites or on the user’s interface? I think both.

I imagine in the near future web users will look to create a web site and host will offer all of the tools they need, fully streamlined, including a source of revenue. The consumer will be able to earn money through advertisements on their site, which will be fully hosted by this major network site. The hosting will be free. We’re already seeing this concept occurring with sites like ezinearticles.com or helium.com - helium.com even pays for the articles, of course ezinearticles offers the powerful self-PR opportunities. I think when the consumer develops their site they’ll also be exposed to relevant ads and services that would assist them in their business.

Let’s imagine that search technology improves in the near future as well, and that video and audio become more prevelant and outdo the article format. What we’ll have is a series of individuals offering custom channels, blogs where they’re visually speaking and talking to the web user. The greatest skills necessary will be having expertise on a topic and as long as the expertise is there, the person will be able to make money. The advanced search will find ways to filter through legitimate and illegitimate information and we’ll see a world less about self-pr but more about raw talent. Efficiency in this future will be of incredible importance. Creative skills I think will be the most valued, as technical skills are becoming more and more automated. It is my opinion that as technology increases, the process of creating concepts online or in general will be easier and easier. It won’t be that hard to create a beautiful well functioning web site - the final challenge would be what the creator of the site can offer, and since so many services will be streamlined technically - creativity will be the ultimate expertise. Finding unique angles in industry, being able to take technology in new directions that the tradition search algorithms and standard knowledge are unable to figure out.

I also think it’s conceivable that our world will be drastically different in ten years. People always view progress as linear, but its exponential. Just look at today versus five years ago and what a drastically different world we’re living in technologically. Something like the iPhone would have been a pure miracle, unimaginable, or the level of wifi accessibility or the level of opportunities to create and publish content, the popularity of MySpace - the YouTube debates. This world will be changing at a rate where all of the rules will change, the only real skill I think that will define success in the future is incredible flexibility. People who will succeed will jump on each coming opportunity as it comes up, rather than developing long-term business models that stand the test of time. So the real model is to be incredibly flexible and creative.

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By Matt Alland