US Foreclosures problem isn't ending

The US economy remains very fragile, even after trillion of dollars spent by government to save it. It seems now clear that tax payers money wouldn't be enough to stop the economic crisis partially at least routed in the sub prime system. Delinquent mortgages are often the first step of foreclosure. If in parallel the employment rate and the economy was doing good, this indicator wouldn't be as scarring as it is. Things are going together, and they aren't going in the right direction. I personally think that America isn't finding the short term solution to get back on track, which gives people the impression that tomorrow is probably not better than yesterday, so they spend less until they see the light...that they don't see yet! However,there are some positive aspects, that are mainly outside of the US, the good trends in Asia and some South American countries are raising the life level, which means more attraction for US type of products and services.

After manufacturing, America risks to loose services leadership too!

Considering that America has transited from being a manufacturing country after WWII to a service oriented economy, you can imagine how impacting it could be to see America losing its leadership in this segment. Even if it remains a traditional locomotive, this sector has also suffered in the last two years.

Repartition of US GDP: agriculture: 1.2%, industry: 21.9%, services: 76.9% (2009 est.), source: CIA

Raul Pupo, IT serial-entrepreneur and author of the book "America's Service Meltdown: Restoring Service Excellence in the Age of the Customer", gives US entrepreneurs the keys to remain top world contributors of services. This can be achieved by refocusing on the promise of a customer service  excellence, and privileging an ethical long term vision, rather than the current quarterly profit addiction.

You can also see his interview at Money News : Raul Pupo talking about his book

Electronic components demand is soaring

The electronic components' market is the perfect indicator of the High Tech industry trends. After a year of great uncertainty, again new products and gadgets are selling. Thanks for some best sellers as the Apple Ipad that has always a very positive impact on the consumer market and is giving some appetite to other vendors to try to catch a portion of the market. In fact, as the Electronic Components Association is mentioning it, there is also a fear for a shortage in the market. With the emerging countries continuously driving the demand for new cars, new phones and other electronic products, the risk is to see the demand higher than the offer, for a certain time in the next months. At least on that side, the recession seems to be behind us.

Venture capital is slightly back in High Tech sector in the US

Dow Jones just released a report on investments in what we can summarise as the Internet World. After a continuous drop in investments in the Web industry in 2009, 2010 has been a time of recovery. The bottom was reached in Q1 2009 with only about 50 deals concluded. In fact, Q1 2010 was even worse if we take in consideration the value of the money invested with just over $200M. Fortunately enough, Q2 2010 shows an increase in both volume and value. If the number of deal is more important to online communities, the money spent on entertainment is roughly equivalentto the first one. For the last 2 years, online communities have continuously trusted the first place in investments. Everyone is searching for the next Facebook or Twitter. Companies as Foursquare or Gowalla are clearly seen as potential future  with an interesting mix between social and mobile capabilities. Do these startups will bring the ROI expected, it's always hard to say the potential, and we have seen in the past hundreds of promising concepts going nowhere. Today investors are looking very cautiously where they put their money, but we will always see beautiful pitches and plans not giving the expected results. The investors are more than never before asking to theentrepreneurs to have a business model where advertising isn't anymore the only way to create revenue, as they saw too many times the difficulty to attract advertising money in a so crowdy internet world.

Internet trends 2010

To take with you:

 - Internet usage in mobility will become the norm in the future. Already, more than 250M smartphones would be sold in 2010. In 2012, nearly 500M should be sold, against 440M notebooks+desktop PCs. In North America in 2011 and for the years after, more smartphones than classical phones should be shipped. One of the reasons that can explain this progression is the development of 3G networks that work. By 2012, a third of users would have subscribed to a 3G plan, which means having the right device and being able to access the Internet from practically everywhere. The  main usage is remaining search and social networking. Apple is having a great role in this mobile revolution. The introduction of the Ipad is again changing the usage of mobile Internet by providing a new kind of device in between the laptop and the smartphone. Now wireless consumers expect more from their devices, asking for lon lasting batteries and super-fast access. This mobile revolution has created a huge eco-system between the device vendors, the software application companies and the networks. In the same time, the usage itself is becoming more complex, real-time multi-channel communication is becoming a reality. 

- Online advertising should become the new Graal for advertising companies. Today this communication channel remains under utilized. It represents 28% of media consumption for only 13% of advertising spending. Comparing Q1 2008 to Q1 2010, the paid clicks on Google increased by 36% in value to reach $5, 064MM for the quarter (and +34% in volume).- E-Commerce in the US is going back on track after a decrease in beginning of 2009 due to the economic crisis, which has affected traditional commerce in the same way. 

- E-communication is knowing is asecond revolution after the massive usage of the email in the 90's and 00's, social networking users has over passed email users in 2009.

- Cloud computing is becoming the new way to have instant access to data & files instantly, from any computer without having to think too much about losing his work. Security issues, that have been a barrier for a long time to its expansion, have abated as enterprises understand that having data stored locally could also represent a risk.

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Asia is now leading twitter usage

A A study done by Semiocast is showing a surprising trend regarding the usage of Twitter in the world. 60% of the creation of new accounts is now done outside of the US. It's another element confirming that, even if the domination of US remains strong in terms of internet solutions proposed, the usage itself is clearly going global.

65+ population in US

One of the major trends that will impact economy in Western countries in the future is the proportion of seniors in total population. In the next 20 years, it is expected that US +65 years population increase by more than 70% to reach nearly 70M. It means new opportunities for different industries and in parallel a clear need for a continuous adaptation to respond to the specific needs of this population.

GDP forecast for 2010 / 2011

OECD seems confident that apart of Greece, and we know why from the debt crisis she encounters, all the Western countries will be back on track of growth between 2010 and 2011, after 2 very difficult years. This has to be compared with the rest of the emerging countries that will continue to be the locomotives of the World growth. That doesn't mean everything is rose, but at least fo the moment the worst case scenario have been avoided.

In his recent report (GPJ rules of engagement) Forbes asked the question to executives about their marketing budget change in the future. 2010 should see  some important contraction on budgets, but minds are changing and 2011 should be a year of more frank investments in the marketing area. Nevertheless, 58% of the budgets should remain unchanged or even positively oriented in 2010, which is quiet good news for our profession, this being put in perspective of the current economic situation in the US.

Economic trends and the job market

Even if the US job market remains uncertain and for many regions tough, the career coach Franck R. Myers sees reasons to be confident in the near future, as he explains that the mentalities are changing and people are improving their skills and more than ever MARKETING THEMSELVES, which is has been a major trend in the last years, and it's mainly due to people using the social marketing tools to brand themselves.

Because everything is going social today...it's better to understand the trends

22 Social Media Trends 

The ideas and facts to take with you : The web 2.0 is now  called the Live Web. Consumers have more power: they are informed and involved emitters. A quarter of the content on big brands is generated by the Internet. The transfer of offline budgets to digital and social media will grow importantly in the next years. The social commerce will gradually replace the e-Commerce. By end of 2010, over 60% of 1000 companies in the world will host an online community. By end of 2011, one third of purchases will be influenced by online communities against 9% in 2008.