The Venture Edge

It's my favorite time of year. No -- not Christmas, though that rates right up there. It's the time of year when trendwatching.com names its 12 Crucial Consumer Trends for the upcoming year, in this case 2012. If you've got a business and you want to meet your customers where THEY are, then this list is worth a look. Here are the top-five trends -- click here for the complete list of 12, along with detailed explanations. 

Let me first say that I do not work for mobile payment startup Square, nor do I own any of their stock or have any other financial interest in the company. That said, I think Square is on the leading edge of a revolution in how small businesses accept credit card payments.

The big buzz in the start-up world is mobile communication, whether it's to find things, opt in to special deals from marketers, or conduct your buy/sell transactions from your iPhone.  In the last few months alone I have seen a number of these businesses--it's the wild West out there--but the jury is still out on which ones will stick and which will simply disappear. With a global mobile payments market expected to reach nearly 2 Trillion in the next decade, it's no wonder that entrepreneurs and investors are scrambling to find the platform that will become the standard.