While news surrounding the latest gadgets, mobile applications or latest buzzwords can easily build excitement around a new technology or concept, it doesn’t always mean that the average consumer will respond or adopt as a result.

As we’ve all seen before, a concept that’s predicted to be a smash hit with consumers can easily come and go with little enthusiasm, while others that seem unnecessary and even irrelevant can go on to become the latest craze.  With technology adoption, there’s sometimes no rhyme or reason for what resonates with consumers or the business community.

Looking toward the year ahead however, we can use the early trends that exist now to predict what will likely turn out to be large scale adoption.  Although it may be stating the obvious, smartphone adoption will continue to increase at even faster rates during 2011, while tablet devices will see an increase in adoption rates as well.

As we closed out 2010, Apple’s iPad remained the primary tablet available to consumers.  While revolutionary in form, the device was expensive and therefore less compelling to a majority of consumers.  As such, tablet adoption wasn’t what many had expected over the past year.  For 2011, however, we’re poised to see nearly 100 new tablets coming to the market running new mobile operating systems, sporting hardware that rivals the most powerful home PCs hitting store shelves and priced at a level that will enable this category of device to go mainstream.  With 2011 being informally dubbed the “Year of the Tablet,” adoption is set to hit critical mass, ushering in an entirely new wave of mobile computing in the process.

Looking further at mobile trends for 2011, the year should see adoption grow for emerging technologies like mobile 3D, mobile video content and increased mobile Web usage.  With things like increased development using HTML5, faster and more reliable mobile broadband, and continued adoption of tablet devices, mobile video content is poised to see a huge boost in usage.  Recent studies have shown that a mere 10% of all mobile subscribers consume 90% of all mobile video content. This number projected to increase exponentially over the coming year.

An emerging industry that’s likely to see the most adoption in 2011 is mobile healthcare or “mHealth.”  Though numerous barriers exist, recent innovation over the past year is helping to overcome many of them.  Smartphone adoption and increased mobile application usage has become a foundation to help elevate innovation in healthcare and consumer anticipation for the concept is a primary driver as well.  The target market for this technology is a driving factor for this technology too, as we are all prospective users.

Though it’s never easy to predict what consumers will respond to the most, it’s safe to say that the year ahead will bring dramatic adoption in several key areas of the mobile ecosystem, with mobile healthcare leading the pack.  Still, it’s not always consumers who define adoption rates.  The decisions made by industry heavyweights like Google, Apple, Microsoft and others will help shape consumer sentiment as well.