Om and Niall PodSessions

The calendar year has almost come to a close as the world focuses on tangible goods for the holidays and Internet time slows down just a little bit. In this week's PodSession Om and I review a few trends from 2006 and their impact on next year's big trends.

Years ago marketers moved their standard unit of web traffic measurement from "hits" to "pageviews" to better reflect the images, movies, and other sub-components of a page brought together in a single browser window to enhance user experience. In 2006 subsections of web pages became even more apparent, throwing off historical measurements of website popularity and customer engagement. From Ajax components to sidebar widgets and embedded movies, sub-components of a page came alive, creating what was often a better user experience while complicating the statistical measurement the web and its advertisers rely upon.

The lifeblood of the web, the advertising systems lining the pockets of online companies large and small, received significant upgrades this year. Microsoft launched a new online advertising product, AdCenter, and Yahoo! Search Marketing received an upgrade with the introduction of Project Panama. Google's AdSense product didn't sit still either, adding better understanding of advertising landing pages and tracking a sale from ad display through completed purchase with Google Checkout.

The technologies powering the web received a major upgrade as well. It was only a year ago when Om and I interviewed David Heinemeier Hansson just before the release of Ruby on Rails version 1.0. Rails continues to be a hot topic and serves as an inspiration for frameworks in other programming languages.

Om and I discuss these topics and much much more in this week's PodSession, Year-long trends in review. The podcast is 21 minutes in length, a 10 MB download.