This post marks my third year of making predictions for the coming year. I’m emboldened by not failing utterly in the past two years (well, for the most part), but I am sure this will only ensure that these prognostications will prove immeasurably off the mark. But what the hell, here we go:
1. Someone, and I do not know who, will make a big pile of Big Media video assets freely available on the web – and not via Google Video. This will be a major studio, or television company, which will realize that once you free content, content will come back to you in mashed up and remixed glory that has – holy smokes! – real business models like advertising and retail attached. The deal will be simple: anyone can download, rip, and mix this video, but if you plan to make money from it – even selling ads next to it – you have to cut a deal with the mother ship. The company that does this will be heralded as either visionary, lunatic, or both.
2. Google will stumble, some might say badly, but it will be significant. How? My money is on its second or third major deal – something on the order of the recent AOL deal. It may well be a loss (perceived or otherwise) in the Google Book Search case. Or it might be the privacy issue. This is not to say the company is going to fail, or the stock, for that matter. Just that it will face a major test in 2006 that it won’t pass with flying colors.
3. Speaking of privacy, there will be a major court case involving the database of intentions that gets legislators talking about “protecting the common citizen” (or somesuch) from “the perils of unprotected Internet data mining” (or somesuch).
4. Google and Yahoo will both enter the video (nee television) advertising marketplace.
5. Microsoft will gain five points of search share, at least. But…
6. Vista will launch, and its much anticipated and feared desktop search integration will be viewed as anemic. The whisper as to why? Fear of the DOJ….
7. “Web 2.0” will make the cover of Time Magazine, and thus its moment in the sun will have passed. However, the story that drives “Web 2.0” will only strengthen, and folks will cast about for the next best name for the phenomenon.
8. iTunes will begin to get the speed wobbles as the music industry decides it wants to control its distribution just like in the good old days.
9. The massive telephony industry will begin to crush mammals left and right as its core business model continues a long and painful death dance. “Mammals” are defined as anyone who happens to be in its way as it attempts – scarily but unsuccessfully – to force a two-tiered Internet onto all of us.
10. The pace of Internet startup acquisitions will not be as torrid as most entrepreneurs and VCs had hoped.
11. There will be one major new IPO that briefly gets the press talking about “the Next Google.” But it won’t live up to the hype.
12. It will be a long year of head scratching and simmering disputes in the “content creation” business as the major platforms shift strategy on RSS, in particular, and blogging, broadly. In other words, we won’t get nearly as much accomplished as we hoped. At issue is how content creators export their business model through RSS aggregation platforms. Near the end of the year, though, there will be a breakthrough deal that clarifies business model standards in the RSS space.
13. Mobile. I repeat my mobile prediction from last year, in the hope that it will come true this year: Mobile will finally be plugged into the web in a way that makes sense for the average user and a major mobile innovation – the kind that makes us all say – Jeez that was obvious – will occur. At the core of this innovation will be the concept of search. The outlines of such an innovation: it’ll be a way for mobile users to gather the unstructured data they leverage every day while talking on the phone and make it useful to their personal web (including email and RSS, in particular). And it will be a business that looks and feels like a Web 2.0 business – leveraging iterative web development practices, open APIs, and innovation in assembly – that makes the leap.
14. The China Internet Bubble will begin to deflate.
15. Tivo and NetFlix will merge.
16. I will not write another book, but my publisher will ask me to update the one I did write. I’ll point him to this site and leave it at that….
17. My new business (FM) will grow in fits and starts. By the end of the year, it will either be close to claiming success, or a glorious and noble whiff. Either way, it’ll be one hell of a ride….
As always, thanks to all of you for your feedback, your gracious insights, your not so gracious calling me out when I need calling out, and most importantly, for your support in what has been the most satisfying and energizing year of my professional life.
Happy Holidays and here’s to a Wonderful New Year!
PS – Posting will be light through the New Year…
Quarterly Revenue Google vs. Yahoo
Google : Revenues were $2.69 billion for Q3 2006, an increase of 70% compared to the third quarter of 2005 and an increase of 10% compared to the second quarter of 2006.
Yahoo : Revenues were $1.58 billion for the third quarter of 2006, a 19 percent increase compared to $1.33 Billion for the same period of 2005.
The POWER of AdSense
Google brought in $2.69 billion from the AdWords program, both search ads and contextual ads. Yahoo brought in a total of $1.37 billion from its Yahoo Search Marketing & Yahoo Display Advertising divisions. Google brought in double of what Yahoo did in Q3 advertising sales.
Of Google’s total revenue, $1.63 billion came only from AdWords; roughly $300 million more than all of the different types of online advertising that Yahoo sells.
As a bonus, AdSense delivered $1.04 billion in Q3 2006. One billion dollars from AdSense! “Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.04 billion, or 39% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2006.”
Contextual Advertising is no longer a darkhorse revenue generator as Google AdSense is not far from equaling Yahoo’s total marketing revenues. This is why, of course, Yahoo is pushing to upgrade and rollout a more enhanced Yahoo Publisher Network once ‘Project Panama’ is fully functional.
It’s all what i wanted to say..
Right, very interesting, gr.
What if there was a way to embed source info into everything that gets put up on the web — and then have spiders do constant sweeps of the net to generate lists of how content is being used – if it’s in a ‘commercial’ context – either directly sold, or running alongside advertising? Come to think of it — wouldn’t it be better just to have the content send out it’s own signal on how it’s being used, in what context and where? Then maybe have some massive server keeping track of it all?
Greetings
Heh, it’s wrong, Pozy..
Having visions and ideas about the future is smart like being nostradamus himself…. Nice ideas.
I predict your publisher will get you to do a new intro or afterword for the paperback.
I hope you’re right about #7. Enough of “web 2.0” already. Too much hype.
I really like all your predictions I really hope that you are right for the 3rd year in a row! They are really cool!
Many Greetings from Germany
look for Tee und Kaffee
Sylva
I predict your publisher will get you to do a new intro or afterword for the paperback.
Nice predictions, seems to get very interesting in 2016.
Health is more than many people think. Health means thinking anholistic way. Our Health-Experts recommend thinking of health in an german way.
Great and useful article, thanks a lot!
so what so zap to the dönerbox
Nice predictions, seems to get very interesting in 2016.
as a former Gartner analyst allow me to share how really really good market predictions are made
How about Google co-opts Firefox, rebrands as GBrowser, and knocks off IE once and for all?
Live is never better or worse than we think of. predictions seems to get interesting in year 2016
nice xmas
ursp@ce
I predict that the roman catholic church will fall to the new Christian revelation circulating on the web titled The Final Freedoms, taking theological history and the rest of tradition with it.
This guy that predicts is a liar because he just does the predictions in the end of 2006
Hi, I want to thank you for your work and efforts in 2006 and use the time now to wish you all the best for 2007.
I hope you’re right about #7. Enough of “web 2.0” already.
umm , good text! thanks everbody.
Beautiful predictions, only let’s hope that the become reality.
Wish you all the best for 2007! Would be nice to have in the next predictions some non- profit- things.
only BBC !!!
I am off to the party tonight and will update this post after. Tomorrow hopefully will be better?
Nice predictions, I will follow them through the year and wonder wich ones come true!
Nice predictions, I will follow them through the year and wonder wich ones come true!
For me it´s hard to learn here, but when I´ve a little bit time it´s my place. Thanks at all….
Well, I would assume that, let’s say a decade from now on, we all will remember the glory Web 2.0 days very very differently… like always
Well done perfect titles
it’s is very usefull article,thank you very much.ı want to more supply about this subject.
Great for this document i`m search many days in the world wide web,but now i found this information on your site.
Thanks for help,thats the answer of all my questions i`v had
Thanks again
Timo
Very good article. The best in one’s kind. Thanks
Great and excellent article t’s realy helpful. Thanks again.
yes CC and video go well together. we will see cool example’s this year and not only from the BBC 😉
Good text. Thanks everbody.
What will happen to live.com search? Will they get any remarkable points in users search experience? I like the SERPs of live.com and they give a nice selection of results. But it seems that I´m alone…
I like the SERPs of http://www.komiklik.net and they give a nice selection of results
your mobile marketing prediction will come true in 2007. One year to early 🙂
Thanks, i was desperately looking for that info!, great and excellent article, it’s realy helpful. Covering some points I really needed, really useful.
and where is iphone hype?
seychellen fan.
very intresting article
thx for that
and
goodluck
it’s is very usefull article,thank you very much.ı want to more supply about this subject.
Thanks everbody, great Text 🙂
thanks a lot 🙂 great article 🙂
thanks a lot 🙂 great article 🙂
regards Motoryzacja
Hi, Thanks for very interesting article. I really enjoyed reading all of your articles. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… makes you think more. Keep up the good work. Greetings, sklep zoologiczny, sklepy zoologiczne
seems to get very interesting in 2016 😉