What Constitutes the Next Big Thing?

Peeling back the many layers, you'll find that business is really about trends. No matter how great you promote a product and how awesome your product is, if it cannot develop or fall into an existing trend, you will never be able to get your business off the ground. To this end, people are always looking to either create the next big thing, or they're looking to hitch a ride on it.

However, there's a question as to what exactly constitutes the next big thing. After all, trends come and go like weather patterns. It's increasingly difficult to spot a true winning wave to ride in today's digital and overtly fickle marketplace. So knowing what it comprises will help you to make better business decisions.

Luckily, we're at a point and time with technology where that can be explained using simple terms and trends that everyone is aware of. The first big thing we'll look at is something that really hit big about a decade ago and has continued to expand its market social networking.

When the Internet was first introduced on the worldwide scene in the mid 1990s, it didn't take entrepreneurs long before they had figured out how to monetize the system, and then countless programs and tactics started to rise, and then many market trends arose. The Internet, for that reason and many, many more, was truly the next big thing.

After a few years, the web started becoming infinitely more personal. With sites allowing you to create profiles and connect to other people, the next big thing was on the horizon. Blogging took off like a rocket, and sites like MySpace and YouTube were quick to follow. Everything was viral; everything was interconnected.

Of course, no one really knew that this type of networking would explode like it did. That's part of the unknown factor and the popularity of a trend.

Ironically, what happens is never accurately predicted. It's usually judged after it has already made it to the top of the market.

The only real way to predict what it will be is to focus on trends and do proper research. This way, you can step into an already successful market and help build up the wave by adding something more interesting to it that people will love. Expanding the already popular trend is how to get the next big thing in business.

Think of Twitter coming along in social networking. Obviously, no one knew that it was going to be the next big thing; but because the creators were tapping into an already trendy market and looking to improve it, their chances of becoming the next big thing were exponentially increased.

To get the full picture of what the next big thing is, just think about things like the iPhone and Twitter and see how they entered into the market and what they brought to the table.