I’ve had a baby. What have you all been up to?

In the time I’ve been away and had a baby (she’s 10 months old this week…), a lot has happened.

The internet being a many-splendoured and rapidly changing thing, I hesitate to attempt any coherent summary of all that’s gone on.

Instead, I’ll just pick out a few things that have sprung up on my radar as significant changes between November ‘08 and September ‘09. Broadly speaking, I see them as these:

1. digital as support act > digital as headliner
2. semantic web frenzy > real-time web frenzy
3. slow fade of shiny 2.0 aesthetic > upsurge of big type mobile-friendly aesthetic
4. Twitter as geekorama > Twitter as mainstream
5. Google primacy > Google supremacy
6. 43 white, analogue US presidents > 1 black, digital US president
7. banner ads and buttons > social, shared content
8. state control of ISPs (Iran, China) > online social mobilisation and subversion
9. stream of rubbish reality TV on iPlayer and 4OD > demise of Keith Floyd
10. Plus, of course the launch of Spotify, Facebook Connect, a proliferation of Twitter clients and more iPhone apps than you can shake an accelerometer-enabled stick at.

You’re more than welcome to plug the gaps on the things I’ve missed whilst I was lost in the apparently endless cycle of feeding, sleeplessness, nappy-changing and washing.

Please, tell me: what other important stuff have I missed?

P.S. As I was writing this, I found a couple of Trend Blend maps via Ross Dawson’s blog which suggest that between 2008 and 2009, life has gone from being an ordered train journey through society, politics, technology et al…

Trend Blend map 2008

…to a more scary-looking hydra, beset by ominous little red demons. Perhaps I should have stayed at home, offline, with the curtains closed.

Trend Blend map 2009