Twitter as the upcoming brand of the year—Expectations in cloud computing on the rise

Europe’s leading innovation exchange DLD (Digital Life Design) starts this year’s three-day conference in Munich (25 - 27 January 2009) with a review and an outlook. In a survey preceding the event, the DLD expert community confirmed the trends it had indentified in January 2008.

DLD co-founder Dr. Marcel Reichart: “Twitter is the rising star for the DLD community.“ And DLD co-founder Steffi Czerny adds: “Facebook maintains its successful track record.” The two Managing Directors of Burda Research & Development initiated DLD five years ago; the conference has meanwhile spurred an innovation community.

Apple as the leading brand and design trailblazer

25 years after its foundation—Steve Jobs presented the first Mac on 24 January 1984—Apple continues to be the experts’ favorite: the “Top 3 New Design Items of 2008” were the iPhone (35 %), the Macbook Air (5%) and the iPod touch (3%). As far as the “Leading Entrepreneurs of 2008” are concerned, Steve Jobs is second (12%) only to Mark Zuckerberg (16%). Barack Obama comes in third (6%). In the category “Top 10 Innovative People in 2008“, it is exactly the other way around: Barack Obama ranks first with 84%, followed closely by Steve Jobs (82%) and Mark Zuckerberg(72%). “Innovative politicians are gaining in importance,” concludes Reichart.

Outlook 2009: Cloud computing and investment in new media

In the field of digital business Networking (8%) and Mobile Applications (5%) are considered the most important topics of the year. Steffi Czerny: “Cloud computing will also be a hot topic.” Marcel Reichart: “And despite the financial crisis, people continue to invest in new media.” The preferred options in this context are “Founding” (51%), “Acquisition or Shareholding” (43%) and “Brand/Business Extension” (39%). Only 9% of all experts surveyed do not plan to invest in new media at all this year.

background information :

The full survey will be presented at the DLD conference on 26 January 2009 and is available for download at www.dld-conference.com. (Methodology: online survey of 141 DLD invitees from more than 20 countries).