It’s 2009 and for many South Africans back on the 5th, the catchup began while at the same time being fairly relaxed while the rest of the world started slowly drifting back from their time off.
The year kicked off with the fun Nerdies 09 awards, which i’m sure everyone’s twitter feeds went crazy with nominees and updates.
Surprisingly enough the reports coming in on the holiday season showed that the recession did not affect online retail as much as anyone would expect, with Hitwise reporting increases in online traffic and spend in the UK. As from today, IMRG reports and increase in 14.2% for online retail for the December 2008 period. Seems the recession had less effect on online holiday shopping as people would have expected. I can agree with that, being the unfortunate one to have to dive into the shops on Christmas eve, where there seemed to be more people shopping than i’ve ever seen in my life (South Africa that is).
Google’s favicon goes through a makeover, that recieved a mixed response. Personally, i found it fairly arb within my FF tabs, something with colourful blotches? Google is not alone, Yahoo went through retrenchments recently, Jerry Yang even left the board, now it seems rumours are flying around that Microsoft is up next. Google then recently announced layoffs and a shutdown of services, which include uploads to Google Video. Google also recently announced the release of their own sitemap generator, which i have yet to play around with.
Steve Jobs announces a leave of absense from Apple due to cancer, soon after Apple suffering share price drop of 7%.
WebAfrica starts planning to build their own network, selling 30% stake to Smartcom, expanding their current products and services. (Thanks Brendan for the heads up 
)
On a lighter note (sure to give you a chuckle), George Bush is now leaving the White House, however leaves behind a memorial legacy for all of us online, with the “miserable failure” GoogleBomb.
Let me not forget the flood of 2009 predictions the last 2 weeks, which are a great read for first few days, however they start to lose their luster after variation after variation. Matt Mcgee however offers a great sum up post on all the great predictions for all to read in 1 place. Bookmarking time folks.
This is yet just a “piece of the pie” as they say, while everyone started looking at the future of mobile search last year, it really looks that 2009 will be the year of mobile, Apple launching their new 3G Iphone and many businesses and marketing companies realising the potential of the mobile market. As mentioned in a collegues presentation from last year, the stats are definitely something to consider, especially within the South African market.
So the 2009 is off to a busy start, let’s hope will all that is happening business continues to go on and the recession will be a thing of the past.
