Increasingly, formerly quiet consumers are using content – remixing it, spreading it – to express themselves. To get in on the spread requires content strategy, and the lack of media scarcity online means we need to “think like a dandelion” – produce as much content as possible and see what catches the breeze.

5. Hyper-connectivity and transmedia
I’m betting these will get huge traction this year. Hyper-connected smartphones, which Nielsen is predicting will be in the majority in the U.S. by the end of 2010, are always-on, broadband-enabled computers (available where you have 4G), which act like “spimes” – devices that know where they are in space and time and who you communicate with most – and tailor the web accordingly: using context to make content more useful. I call this “geotility.” I suspect that phone numbers will begin to die out as Facebook, Foursquare or Motorola’s Blur technology connect your social network profile to your phone, removing the need for a separate ID number.

Transmedia planning is the idea I stole from Henry Jenkins, who writes about transmedia narratives in his book Convergence Culture, of creating non-linear brand narratives across channels and platforms, rather than endlessly repeating the big idea everywhere. Coca-Cola is looking to it as the content deployment model for the “Happiness Factory” this year, and lots of other brands are getting into it.

In the spirit of transmedia planning, the final part of this article is a video I made with more predictions about 2010, which is posted on my blog.