I know we're already coming near the end of the first quarter of 2011, but I wanted to share some predictions for the upcoming year from Fjord, a design consultancy. From my experiences talking with startups over the past 3-5 months, I think they're spot on with a number of these predictions. Check out their slide deck below, and leave your thoughts in the comments.

I think they're really spot on with the gamification trend. I know a lot of people think gamification is about cute icons and points, but there's something deeper. Companies like OneTrueFan are gamifying the whole web, and products like UserVoice's new Full Service product incorporate game mechanics to make customer support better (Q: what's the difference between game mechanics and analytics? A: "fun")

I also see a big need to help organize the app store. There are some innovative products in early alpha that are trying to solve the problem of helping mobile app developers get their products out there, and to help people find cool apps that do what they need done (or just find fun games).