What will the year 2011 bring in the hosting and domain name world? Here are some predictions for the next 12 months.

• Joomla 1.6 will be released. Version 1.5 of the free content mangement system was released in 2006 and it looks like finally a new release is imminent.
• Tomcat 7 will come out of beta. Tomcat 7 promises Servlet 3.0, JSP 2.2 and EL 2.2 implementation, plus a focus on improved security.
• A large number of new domain name extensions will get the go ahead at ICANN, although .xxx may not.
• Drupal 7 will be the most popular release of this already very successful content management system.
• Junk e-mail (SPAM) will continue to blight the Inboxs of email users. WebSense reports 8 of 10 messages are Spam. Messaging between individuals via non-email methods such as Facebook will rise. Users will turn to service providers for server-side mailbox filtering.
• New internet infrastructure advances such as DNSSEC and IPv6 will go onto business managers “must-have” list when procuring new services.

These are just a few of the changes we’ll probably see in the coming year. Virtualisation and Cloud computing will continue to influence every aspect of computing and the number of people using the internet consciously and unconsciously will continue to rise. 2011 could see the number of internet connected devices (“the Internet of things”) exceed the world population for the first time [1],[2].