The battle to stand out: Everyone enjoys seeing a video about a cat, an uplifting human story or a breathtaking #fail in their Facebook feed, right? But do you still enjoy it when the same clip pops up over and over and over again?

Don’t get me wrong — I’m probably the first one in the newsroom demanding speedy publication of those charming cats. But if every news outlet uses the same footage, presented in the same way, with the now obligatory text on screen, how is anyone going win the battle for people’s attention?

Hopefully media organizations will work out their strengths and break from the pack to succeed. Chasing clicks, taps, and views with the same content is a short-term game.

Animate it!: The appetite for mobile/social video will continue to grow…and maybe brevity will finally win out. Let’s explain the world with short animated graphics or even GIFs. Snapchat has unleashed incredible creative forces with Discover and Stories. This short-form storytelling is bound to catch on beyond the world of chat apps. To quote Cory Bergman of Breaking News, “it’s the videofication of everything.”

No flipping: Stop making people tilt their heads or twist their phones. 16:9 is not the only aspect ratio in town and we’ll see more “traditional” broadcasters experiment with vertical video.

Look around you: The New York Times wowed us with its high-end VR stories. Others, including the BBC, have given reporters 360º cameras to experiment in the field. In 2016, you’ll see more VR videos as they become easier to film and publish to a range of platforms. Yes, that person on the train waving their phone around is just trying to get the full VR experience.

Notifications: As a rather indiscriminate subscriber to notifications, I’m hoping they’ll become smarter in 2016 — more personalised and contextual. Or maybe I just need to switch them off.

Atomic: The Circa app we knew and loved no longer exists, but its promise of atomized news is by no means dead. Expect to see more from the labs of The New York Times, the BBC and others on this front. (And don’t forget to count how many articles report the death of the article.)

XX: More big media organizations will wake up to the fact that half the world has two X chromosomes, and they’ll offer a more representative news agenda as a result of this revelation.

Oh, and we’ll see even more amazing women in digital. I’m sure.