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its faults (battery life, tends to cause headaches, etc.)

By constantly presenting Glass wearers with information, or the opportunity to get information, Google manages to over-deliver on its mission statement at a time when we actually rely on Google to filter out noise, rather than fill our lives with more noise.

the secret to Google's business model is to embrace the abundance of the Internet's information overload but then remove the detritus and give me only what I want, when I want it, and serve up context-relevant advertising.

It’s all very well having wearable technology that lets you livestream yourself hang gliding. But if it has all the sex appeal of orthodontic headgear, it’s unlikely to catch on.

Arguably, success in wearable technology hinges on making people look and feel good as much as providing a functional service. Developers might be happy to fork vast sums for the privilege of being a Google Glass owner, but when the product goes to mass market, fashion, or at least some sort of coolness and covetability will be as critical as functionality.

With contextual search, it's no longer enough to get your business or product listed on the first Web page of results. On a mobile device, as well as in push situations, SEO is really effective only if you can push your results into the top position, or at least into the first few lines.

Wearable devices like Google Glass and the rumored iWatch could put even more pressure on search results. We don't yet know what their interfaces will look like, but it seems safe to assume that there may be even less real estate available to display search results.

This is one reason why the search engines are working so hard to deliver knowledge rather than just Web page links in their results. Google and Bing both now feature "knowledge boxes" that try to encapsulate the pertinent information about a topic in one glance. This "knowledgization" of search results is conducive to mobile search because it parses data into easily displayed and digestible chunks - essential for the smaller screen.

In 2014, the mobile Web will die. That’s right, that bastardized version of the normal Web will crawl into a shallow grave and leave us all in peace. No more websites crippled with horrible “mobile.yourawfulwebsite.com” URLs. No more reading janky websites that display way too much fine print or omit crucial features when viewed on your smartphone or tablet. 

The mobile Web will die because the companies that make the engines it ran upon are killing their mobile browsers and replacing them with fully functional versions that run on any device. In 2014, these browsers will be updated to put the final nail in its coffin. In turn, developers will continue to build websites that can work across any screen size. Responsive design (what we do at ReadWrite to make the site look pretty everywhere) will continue to grow in 2014 as people realize that their old websites are losing them a lot of traffic from mobile devices.

Location-based consumer apps didn't let me down; as predicted, they remained stagnant this year. Foursquare and its kindred just are not hot anymore, even if Foursquare did just raise a funding round this week.

Context is more than location. Context is derived from a wealth of signals pulled from environmental, social, emotional, cultural, and economic factors. The current SMS push messaging campaigns, where an offer fires based on a customer's location, is just the beginning. As marketers mature in handling context, they will come to know that Mrs. Smith isn't interested in the store nearest her home, where the area has poor lighting and bad parking, but the one you have in the mall 10 miles further out. Why? Because she can visit your shop, along with six others, in the stress-free mall; leave her infant in the crèche; and pick up her husband from work on the way back. 

Smartphones and wearables are the Trojan horse for bringing this new data to brands, with the new Samsung S4 smartphone having nine built-in sensors, and Google Glass a staggering 13. These devices bring more environmental and emotional real-time data about location, orientation, movement, temperature, humidity, light levels, and other golden cues to help remotely view a moment

two-thirds of consumers would unsubscribe from brands promotions if they thought the messages were too frequent — in the UK, 27% said they would stop using the product completely. It's clear that brands have to respond by understanding context in order to set the appropriate cadence of messaging.