Fever pitch: pull out your thermometers, 'cause things are heating up! Here's our annual roundup of the newest trends, hottest markets and business ideas that promise to sizzle in 2005

Entrepreneur, Dec, 2004 by Karen Axelton, Steve Cooper, Amanda C. Kooser, April Y. Pennington, Karen E. Spaeder, Laura Tiffany, Nichole L. Torres, Sara Wilson, Natalia Olenicoff, Rebecca Villaneda, Jeri Yoshida

Larry Chase, publisher of Web Digest for Marketers and SearchEngineForMarketers.com, says search engine optimization (SEO) isn't for the faint of heart. "This is a very fast-changing marketplace," says Chase. "It's not the kind of field where you learn it once and forget about it." Chase recommends constant reading of industry news to keep up; Grant goes a step further and checks for patents filed by search engine companies to stay ahead of the competition.

Good niche areas for entrepreneurs include pay per click, copywriting and local searches, says Chase, who forecasts personalized searching will be the next big search innovation. For example, tech geeks searching the word Apple will get results for Apple Computer, not the kind of apple you sink your teeth into. In this niche, opportunities exist for entrepreneurs in developing the technology that acquires such user preferences or profiles, as well as in optimizing websites for personalized searches.

Of course, we can't talk about SEO without mentioning the elephant in the room: Google. Chase and Grant agree that Google gets the most SEO attention. However, Chase adds, "You can't please all of the search engines all of the time--you have to figure out that middle ground." Like Grant, if you figure that out, you, too, can be a headlining act.--Steve Cooper

PERFORMANCE APPAREL

Today's clothing needs to offer more than just a fashion statement--it needs to offer value and practicality. That's the thinking behind the growing industry of performance apparel.

Performance apparel is clothing with a purpose, like shirts that offer UV protection or sunglasses with an embedded MP3 player for active people who love the outdoors. You may have been donning performance threads for a couple of years without even realizing it--think wrinkle-free pants and stain-resistant shirts. Apparel that's really pushing the envelope includes clothes that clean themselves; suits that monitor the body and deliver drugs like insulin when necessary; raincoats that receive real-time weather forecasts, notifying the wearer of the outdoor conditions; pants that repel insects; washable suits; and anti-microbial underwear.

Bill McNally, co-founder of Noble Fiber Technologies in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, has created X-Static, a silver-woven textile fiber that's easily incorporated into any textile material and enables the material to kill odor and bacteria while enhancing existing sweat-wicking systems. McNally, who has a biomedical background, recognized the benefits of X-Static for the medical community and also saw applications for use in the military and consumer markets.

"To maximize the performance of a given product, you need to be able to deliver multiple benefits--and that's what we do," says McNally, 43, whose company has seen exponential growth each year since it was founded in 1996.

David Schmida, executive director of the International Association of Clothing Designers & Executives, predicts that by 2010, some 40 percent of all garments sold will have some performance apparel element to them. "Where I see the entrepreneur coming in is in nontraditional uses of fabrics or technologies in apparel," says Schmida. For example, Schmida says entrepreneurs might develop a new fabric for the military but find a use for it in golfwear. Schmida adds that fitness and leisure-time clothing are the hottest segment of the performance apparel market today.