The world of digital media is constantly evolving. Just think - five years ago, you hadn't even heard of YouTube, Facebook, Last.fm or Twitter. Now, you probably couldn't imagine living without these sites. It seems like every week, digital media is taking new steps forward. The following are a few digital media trends to follow for 2010:

* Service on Demand
The explosion in popularity of smartphones like the Apple iPhone or Motorola Droid is partly due to the fact that their applications provide valuable services on demand. If you want to go to a movie, you can now easily look up show times and buy tickets. If you want to make a banking transaction, you can do that through your phone, too. Developers will continue to develop practical uses for mobile devices to give users more functionality than ever before.
* Real Time Search
Recently, Google has started offering a "real time search" option, allowing their users to easily find news and opinions on breaking stories. As the Internet becomes the first place people turn to for their news, users are looking for an option like real time search to help quickly digest breaking information.
* New Media Platforms
Digital media has been steadily moving away from the personal computer and onto a number of different platforms. Throughout the past decade, the iPod, BlackBerry, Kindle, TiVo and netbook have all revolutionized the way we consume media - and the revolution shows no signs of slowing down. Digital media devices are rolling out updates every month, and rumors even have Apple planning a release of a tablet computer in 2010.
* Open Source Programming
Open source systems are taking off because computer programmers have shown a willingness to collaborate together on open source projects. Huge projects that once took a small team of developers years to finish are now benefitting from the expertise of thousands of users. Open source projects in recent years have included massive success stories like Linux, MySQL, Firefox and Wordpress. As the Internet evolves into more of a community, open source projects will gain even more momentum.
* Crowdsourcing
In a tough economy, executives have had to turn to creative solutions like crowdsourcing. Croudsourcing is similar to open source programming as it gives many people control over a task once controlled by a few. It happens when a company asks consumers to help them solve a problem like building technology, analyzing data or developing advertising. While crowdsourcing solutions have been hit or miss in the past, more recent efforts have shown that executives are starting to get it and are capable of using crowdsourcing to accomplish great things.