In
the eighth version of my annual predictions, I’ll try to stay focused and clear, the better to score myself a year from now. And while I used the past two weeks of relatively fallow holiday time as a sort of marination period, the truth is I pretty much just sat down and banged these predictions out in one go, just as I have the past seven years. It works for me, and I hope you agree, or at least find them worth your time. So here we go:
1. We’ll see the rise of a meme which I’ll call “The Web Reborn” – a response to the idea that mobile and apps have killed the web as we know it. In fact, we’ll come to realize that the web is the foundation of nearly everything we do, and we’ll start to expect, as consumers, that all our service providers honor and build in basic principles of “web friendliness” – data portability and user-controlled identity most important among them. Call it a return to the original principles of “Web 2.0”.
2. Voice will become a critical interface for computing (especially mobile apps). This is just not true now, but in a year’s time, there will be a handful of very popular apps that are driven by voice, and in particular, by weaving together voice, text, and identity.
3. DSPs (Demand Side Platforms) will fade into the fabric of larger marketing platforms. In the end, DSPs are the handle by which we understand the concept of technology-driven ad networks. And those have been with us for over a decade. Exchanges, DSPs, SSPs, etc. are all important, but in the end, what matters is that advertisers have scale and efficiency, and consumers have control.
4. Related, MediaBank will emerge as a major independent player in the marketing world, playing off its cross channel reach (outside of digital) and providing an alternative to the conflicted digital platforms at Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. I could imagine a major tech or telco player trying to buy MediaBank as the world realizes that marketing is, in essence, a massive IT business (among many other things).
5. The Mac App Store will be a big hit, at least among Mac users, and may well propel Mac sales beyond expectations.
6. Related, Apple will attempt to get better at social networking, fail, and cut a deal with Facebook.
7. Also related, Apple will begin to show signs of the same problems that plagued Microsoft in the mid 90s, and Google in the past few years: Getting too big, too full of themselves, and too focused on their own prior success.
8. Microsoft will have a major change in leadership. I am not predicting Ballmer will leave, but I think he and the company will most likely bring in very senior new talent to open new markets or shift direction in important current markets like media/marketing/social.
9. The public markets will be surprisingly open to major new Internet deals, despite the current rise of “private IPOs” and the growing belief that the IPO process is broken. In the end, there’s just too many good reasons for public companies to be, well, public. (See Gurley).
10. The tablet market will have a year of incoherence. Apple will dominate with the iPad due to a lack of an alternative touchstone. Google will focus on providing a clear, consistent experience through Android for tablets and mobile, but it will take a third party to unify the experience. I don’t see that happening this year.
11. “Social deals” will morph to become a standard marketing outlet for all business, and by year’s end be seen as a standard part of any marketer’s media mix. Groupon will lead here, but nearly every major player will have an offering, often by partnering with leaders. I’m tempted to say Facebook will abandon its own Deals offering for a deal with Groupon, but I’m not sure that will unfold in one year.
12. Related, Groupon will fend off an acquisition by a major carrier, probably AT&T or Verizon. It’s possible they’ll sell, but I doubt it.
13. Facebook will decline as a force in the Internet world, as measured by buzz. The company will continue to be seen as Big Brother in the press, and struggle with internal issues related to growth. Also, it will lose some attention/share to upstarts. However, its share of marketing dollars and reach will increase.
14. Related, we’ll see major privacy related legislation in the US brought to the floor of Congress, and then fail for lack of consensus. But that will drive a significant shift in how our culture understands its relationship to the world our industry is building, and that’s a good thing.
I’d love to keep going, but I think those are the major ones, at least from my vantage point. Thanks for reading, it was a great year. I’m not going to make predictions about my own work this year, as I’ve got too much inside knowledge on that topic! Let me know your thoughts in comments, and have a great 2011!
Related:
Good one, just as the previous years, and I think you’ll do pretty well in the “2011 – How I did”.
On a related note, the link to “2010 – How I did seems to have a wrong URL as target (article about Android apps).
Good one, just as the previous years, and I think you’ll do pretty well in the “2011 – How I did”.
On a related note, the link to “2010 – How I did seems to have a wrong URL as target (article about Android apps).
What about HTML 5 and all the buzz surrounding it. What kind of mobile OS do you see growing the most?
What about HTML 5 and all the buzz surrounding it. What kind of mobile OS do you see growing the most?
The Windows 7 phone? you have to be joking! 20 years later and Microsoft are still trying to produce a PC OS that doesn’t take a super computer to run and doesn’t crash every day…they are going to take a lot longer before they crack the mobile space!
It will however be interesting to see if Nokia continue their demise, or come up with something that captures the imagination again.
The Windows 7 phone? you have to be joking! 20 years later and Microsoft are still trying to produce a PC OS that doesn’t take a super computer to run and doesn’t crash every day…they are going to take a lot longer before they crack the mobile space!
It will however be interesting to see if Nokia continue their demise, or come up with something that captures the imagination again.
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Apple’s heads will get bigger? Bigger than they already are? won’t they explode? LOL Nice predictions.
Apple’s heads will get bigger? Bigger than they already are? won’t they explode? LOL Nice predictions.