Since I’m just getting Webmetricsguru.com going in it’s new location - I’m pulling in thoughts from The Analytics Guru, where I just wrote a post on

The Russian-Georgia War in the Caucasus - what it means - Paul Krugman

I read all of Paul Krugman’s posts - I usually enjoy them a lot - this Paul Krugman post titled The Great Illusion, just published today, seemed somewhat vague as to what it was getting at - but I think, what it means is that what we think, that war is economically unthinkable, isn’t really so - and that in some ways, our age has a lot in common with the 1920’s.

If so, that is a sobering thought - as what came after wasn’t pretty.

Well, I guess with the US Economy going down the tubes, Search Engines are going to be affected, too.  Well, at least, the very first sign of troubles to come is when Yahoo Asked Employees To Turn In Computers:

"..Yahoo told a group of about 30 or so employees yesterday that their jobs would be terminated in 60 days, and that they could look for other jobs within Yahoo. But could they please turn in their computers by the end of the day today. Other than the engineers, who tend to get quickly sucked into other groups, it is not likely many will find other jobs at Yahoo.

The layoff represents a small reshuffling of employees, with jobs actually moving to Europe. One of the teams affected is the company’s successful Yahoo Answers team, which is split between the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. employees are losing their jobs, and the the team is consolidating in Europe. The same thing is happening for a search technology group that was split between the U.S. and Europe. This part of a bigger reorganization of the search group that’s been going on since at least December. Many of the engineers in the Answers group in the U.S., for instance, will be going to Delicious.

The remainder of the layoffs will come from Yahoo’s Brand Universe project, which was killed in December, a year after it officially launched. Its leader Vince Broady is leaving the company.  Brand Universe was an attempt to make widgetized landing pages for big brands that appealed to advertisers, and is no longer considered a core focus of Yahoo’s renewed consumer-centric strategy."

My point being - Search Engines are not immune to the fallout Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown is having on the rest of the economy - Search will be affected, too. 

Looks like more and more people are saying a recession this year is inevitable - with all that goes with it; among the latest list of those saying this is Adotas's article today on The Falling Knife

"…A general recession is on the horizon; it’s not a question of if, but when and how long. The last recession happened just briefly in 2001, but the job loss which resulted from it continued until 2003, and we have just now started to reach the level of employment we saw then. When this recession comes, people will lose their jobs, and as the professor commented but all too seriously, “People in this room will lose their jobs.” It will be painful but it is necessary to get the economy on the right track again."

And the housing crisis with the sub-prime mortgage meltdown really hasn't fully hit yet:

"…In the professor’s opinion, we are entering the worst housing depression in 50 yrs. It started only recently, and it will last for at least two years and as many as four. And, as Barry Ritholtz explained, you can analyze this housing market using the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief, i.e. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. In his opinion, we have barely made it to Stage 3. People think we’ve felt some of the impact, that it can be seen in the stocks, and all should be fine. We’ll know it’s time to buy when we hear people saying, “This stinks. I’m done with it.”

 It's not everyday you hear trade magazines forecasting news that generally will be considered negative - but today Adotas did (at least, the article writer did).

Another view of the future - I'm not sure this is the future, I, for one, would want to see unfold….interesting video though……

Enjoyed reading John Battelle's predictions for 2008 which many have been waiting for and salivating over for the last month, including Robert Scoble, who interviewed Battelle earlier last month.

I think, as life keeps accelerating, it gets harder to get enough ahead of what's happening and decide what the future trends are going to be for the next year(s) - and the way John Battelle has dealt with that, I think, is focus on what he knows, the companies in his horizon. 

When I met Howard Rheingold a few months ago at this home in Mill Valley, he mentioned the reason he's not writing another book right now is due to the Event Horizon (An Event Horizon is .."…the boundary that represents the maximum distance at which events can currently be observed. For events beyond that distance, light hasn't had time to reach our location, even if it were emitted at the time the universe began.")being so close - we're in the phenomenon, and it's really hard to predict where it all goes from here.  

All the more reason why John Battelle's predictions are valuable - hell… my predictions were about 75% correct, his a little more, but he predicts about stuff that is very Web 2.0, companies that are name brands, companies that he knows and deals with - companies and situations that define the current landscape and future landscape of media - when John Battelle comes up with a scenario of how things will spin out next year, it's time to take a look and listen to it.

So what does John Battelle say?:

"… 2008 will be the year of integration indigestion for the majors, and as such, it will mean M&A will slow down for those companies.  "

I think John means the media and search companies he tracks - but M&A will slow down anyway due to the credit crunch from the fallout of Sub-Prime Mortgages and Corporate Bonds both going south.    I would think, the bar will be raised on what it takes for companies to combine - maybe just the expectation of profits or lower costs won't be enough.  

 "…Another trend we'll see is the continued erosion of the traditional mobile oligarchy. But despite the best efforts of Android, not much will get done this year. Don't worry, though, by 2009, we'll finally see a mobile web worthy of a serious development economy, one that looks a lot like Web 2 looked in 2005."

That was not a hard prediction to make, the Wireless Auction is going forward - yet it's going to take a while, yet, before the big carriers (Sprint/Nextel, ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc) come out of the dark age of their propitiatory setups and come up with standards that enable the development economy Battelle speaks about - I think he sees that 2008 is a year of developments, but no real breakthroughs here - even it it seems like there will be a breakthrough - it won't happen, really, till 2009.

"….company has incredible numbers, and will continue to impress, but analysts, tired of bidding up the stock, will start to question the company's myriad ocean-boiling projects - after all, it's merely trying to reinvent Health, Energy, Telecom, IT (both consumer apps and OSes), and a few other major portions of the GDP. Look for a few querulous analyst reports and even a few downgrades by the end of the year, as Wall Street finally comes out of its honeymoon stage with Google and demands that the company consolidate its control in markets where profits are secure: Search and AdSense. Look for complaints about profits and integration (or lack thereof) with regard to Doubleclick, and at least one major product flop that gets analyst tongues wagging. Google will continue to struggle with its display advertising business, at least as it is traditionally understood, in part due to a culture conflict between its engineering-based roots and the thousands of media-savvy sales and marketing folks the company has hired in the past two years."

Well, it's about time for Wall Street to fall out of love with Google - Google has become like the 1000 head hydra, expanding in all directions, trying to take over the world - but as it continues to expand out - it becomes more diffuse and the more acquisitions it makes, the more likely that some of them will fail.  John feels this is the year that Google really fails at something - and I agree - it's about time Google realized it's not infallible.

Battelle is writing another book, it looks like…I wonder what it's going to be about?

BTW, my own predictions for 2008  are  here (Web and Economic) and here (mostly Economic Predictions for 2008). Meanwhile I discovered a Prediction for December 27th come true with Benazir Bhutto assassinated.  Weird, I read about that prediction on December 25th - and about 36 hours later - it happened. 

Was asked to come up with some 2008 Predictions for the Web earlier this month and now I'm going to do that:

Web Predictions for 2008 - 

1. As a result of content sharing between different Google Reader accounts AND the  ever increasing amount of RSS Feeds that we're reading - we'll find ourselves looking, again, to content aggregated or specialists, to take all of that data and make meaning out of it.   

But how much of that is going to happen in 2008?  I think we were seeing the beginnings of that two years ago with Yahoo's pages being able to be saved to a personal account - at that time is was suggested that some people my harvest the web in order to pick out the best stuff, and then offer it. 

Then Google Reader came along and did a much better job of gathering data, allowing it to be stored, allowing it to be read on mobile devices and allowing to be shared - and most of that happened in 2007.

Social Networks also, fully came on like this year - this was the year of Social Networks, of sharing information - and now that Google Reader is also allowing us to share what our "friends" marked and found interesting - there's a need to find ways to prune though it. 

Why?  If Robert Scoble can read though 800 feeds a day, and I read about 200 a day (and it takes me a hour of my time, reading through 200 feeds throughout the day …what happens when there's 10,000 feeds to read through.

Sure…. that's a way's away - but what if more and more people blog, write, express opinions, and while alot of it was duplicate stuff, a lot wasn't ….. at some point - your time is going to be the delimiting factor here - you can't consume this stuff 24 hours a day - so content aggregators, perhaps people with a special interest, or platforms that make it easier (like Techmeme) are going to become more powerful and more pervasive in 2008.

 

2. Virtual World Platforms such as Second Life will continue to become more popular in Europe and Asia, as opposed to the United States - where the growth has bottomed out for the time being.

3. In 2008 both the Google Phone and Google Social Network based around Search  will emerge.

- The Google Phone has long been rumored as a platform, not a product, but actual Google Phone, or versions of it, will be manufactured and mostly supported by mobile advertising - which will make the Google Phone very popular (as long as you can stand the Ads).  You'll also be allowed to have Ad Free service for a fee - payable to Google.

- The Google Social Network will be a merging of information being collected now from Google Search and Web History, along with Google Reader habits, Google Map, etc.   Because Google is collecting data on your activities via the Google Toolbar, and your Google Account - it's in the position to utilize information it's collecting more effectively - and I believe 2008 will be the year that this happens - that it all comes together.

3. The world of Search, in general, will continue to stagnate, with Google increasing it's Market Share while Yahoo and MSN continue to either shrink or Stand Still.   Ask, as number 4, will continue to innovate, but it won't make much difference.

4. Mobile Platforms will continue to become more powerful and more pervasive, and it will be possible, in late 2008, to entirely replace a laptop, with a mobile hybrid phone, PDA device - not clear who will be producing it - but my guess in Nokia - since they seem, overall, to produce the most powerful mobile phones.

In this area, the iPhone will continue to improve and gain market-share.

5. More and more areas of cities will have free wireless Internet - the trend has been moving along for the last three years and will accelerate in 2008.

6. The Writer's strike that has paralyzed a lot of network Television will be settled by April 2008, but there will be permanent damage due to the strike - as more alternative media, user generated, will be consumed than before, and people will be willing to view talk show hosts being totally unscripted.  Some shows will actually end up being unscripted.  Meanwhile, the writers will make out better than before, once this is all settled and they have some web revenue along with the writing revenue for television and cable.

7. Web Analytics will continue to grow as force in online advertising - as more businesses want metrics - 2008 might be the year where Web Analysts are given a SEAT AT THE TABLE.

OK, Economics - Politics:

1. While it's likely that the Democrats will take the White House in 2008, one can't rule out some surprise event that will change people's perceptions and change the outcome of the election from what we expect it to be, today.   It's kinda interesting to see how Giuliani and McCain would be in the prefect position - to take a situation that was "manipulated" and turn it as rallying point for a continuance of Republican Politics as usual.   Hopefully, if something like that is being planned, it will either fail, or we, as people will be intelligent enough to see though it and make the right decisions.  But only time will tell.  As far as I can see now, a Republican, any Republican, is unelectable.  

But you never know how things will change next year; there always seems to be some surprise, some unforeseen circumstance that works in favor of keeping these guys in power.

2. Next year is going to be a tough year, financially, for businesses, due to the Credit Crunch caused by Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown.  I can continue to see a weak dollar, going even lower in value - in fact, it maybe necessary for the dollar to be weak for a while - not only because of the way United States is viewed by the World, but the imports are what is keeping the country from sinking into a recession - and so, by that reasoning, the dollar must stay weak.

I don't know what else to say for 2008, as it's going to be here in a couple of hours - and I wish everyone a Happy New Years, and that 2008 be an even better year than 2007 for all my readers (including me). 

In a post I did on Christmas day titled Top Google Searches for 4Q 2007 I tacked on the results of the 100th top query on Google which was "psychic predictions 2008 president" and I found a number of predictions for 2007-2008, many that were accurate, or not that far off (read the second half of the post to judge for yourself).

However, one prediction was due to happen in two days from Christmas - today:

The date of December 27th 2007 will prove to be a very important one. I feel that an event of global proportions will occur on this date. At first I felt that this event will be related to military actions, but I now believe that this date concerns a terrorist attack, possibly in Europe.

Gee…that's tomorrow.  Well, I can't tell you if that's correct or not since it's not happened  yet.

Well, an event happened today, a pakistan assassination, that seems to fit this prediction - Benazir Bhutto assassinated (see the actual bhutto assassination video of the aftermath - the bombed out limo is shown after 1:03 minutes from the beginning.   This event, and what surrounds it does seem to fit with the prediction. 

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday outside a large gathering of her supporters where a suicide bomber also killed at least 14, doctors and a spokesman for her party said.

Benazir Bhutto greets her supporters at the rally that was hit by a suicide attack.

While Bhutto appeared to have died from bullet wounds, it was not immediately clear if she was shot or if her wounds were caused by bomb shrapnel.

President Pervez Musharraf held an emergency meeting in the hours after the death, according to state media.

Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.

Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto's vehicle. Watch aftermath of the attack. »

Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital — less than two miles from the bombing scene — where doctors pronounced her dead."

Is the event of global proportion? Yes.  Civil War in Pakistan - you know who's hiding there and Pakistan has atomic weapons. 

How this affects the world, I'm not sure - but it can not be good sign - assinations usually aren't good signs (unless it's a tyrant - but even then, it can be argued that assinations create more chaos and instability than constructive results - and that's not very good news for us in the US and maybe for the rest of the world in this case as former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was trying to move to a more "democratic" form of goverment - or so we're told).  

Bresides the fact, it's clear that Benazir Bhutto knew she had a good chance of being assassinated, much as Anwar Sadat did, several years before, in Egypt (see actual footage below).

The New York Times has a story on it the Benazir Bhutto assination too .. Benazir Bhutto, 54, Lived in Eye of Pakistan Storm  that was somewhat more critical - and nothing is  black and white anyway.

In Talk Left -Benazir Bhutto Assassinated, where I first heard of this tragic event, it's mentioned the New York Times story had the a negative slant towards Benazier Bhutto:

"..The NYTimes story is incredibly negative towards Ms. Bhutto and has little analysis of what this means for Pakistan, surely the more important story from the US perspective. A very strange story indeed. WaPo has this:

Bhutto's death is a devastating development, coming 12 days before Pakistanis are set to vote in national parliamentary elections already marked by enormous political turmoil. President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Novembe
r — a move which he said was to combat terrorism, but which was widely perceived as an effort to stave off legal challenges to his authority. U.S. military officials said last week that the terrorist group al-Qaeda increasingly is focusing its efforts in Pakistan."

And here's an assesment of what's going in Pakistan (high alert Pakistan News) that was given recently, before the Benazir Bhutto Assination today - TPM's Spencer Ackerman interviews Pakistan expert Barnett Rubin on the global implications from an interview conducted by Josh Marshall earlier in November of 2007:

I think it's not outlandish to suggest that next year's Presidental Election in the United States will be dominated by a couple of themes - the Sub Prime Mortgage Meltdown, the Health Care Crisis, the Political situation in Pakistan (Bhutto and Pakistan will come up as issues) and finally, the military and economic debacle in Iraq and the failure of the US Inititives in that region.

What's clear to me is the Sub-Prime Mortgage meltdown will get much worse next year - with the potential that 1-5 homes in the United States will have "negative equity" - and that's going to become more of a Presidential Issue than it appears to be right now. 

But this thing that is unfolding in Pakistan now, A Prediction for December 27th comes true - Benazir Bhutto assassinated, while it doesn't get the coverage here that many of the other stories in MSM get - might be the one with the most implications for us, along with the Sub Prime Mortgages melting down and the credit crisis.

In preparation for John Battelle's 2008 predictions - he scored his 2007 Predictions and you can read about those in 2007 Predictions, How Did I Do?

Let's see what his 2008 Predictions contain.

Ok, maybe I should do something similar to Steve Rubel in Charting 2007's Three Big Web 2.0 Trends with my own Web Predictions - I just covered predictions in these two posts A Survey of Predictions for 2008 - so far (I'll try to come our with some of my Web Predictions next week) and earlier in Predictions for 2008 and how I did with my 2007 Predictions but I didn't use Google Trends, or Blogpulse, or anything like that with broad categories.

So…I think I'll do that in the next few days - but before I do, I want to briefly comment on what Steve Rubel predicted:

"….Data: Searches for social networking and news volume both doubled in 2007. However, more recently, the volume has started to show some signs of weakness. Meanwhile, geographically, interest in social networking from India and Singapore is skyrocketing. Search volume for individual sites, like Facebook, appear to track the broader meme.

* Insight: Social networking is evolving from a group of sites into several competing platforms that power thousands of sites. Eventually, we won't think of social networks as sites but as a feature. This data might just be the first sign of such a progression."

Agreed.  Social Networks are quickly evolving and with some kind of Universal sign in, or ID, to import friendships, the particular Social Network might not matter as much as it does now.  For example, now, Going.com has a pretty exciting people recommendation engine built into it's Social Network - but what if, down the line, we all make our own Social Networks from bits and pieces we plug in - much as some generic PC's are built today.  Why not?    Why couldn't we just go to an integrator and ask them to build a Social Network from different applications that talk to each other - and we pay for that - or just build it ourselves.   I think that's the future but I don't know if it will materialize in 2008 - it might take longer.

Trend I: Social Networking

"…Micro blogging fosters connection with less work all while working well with mobile devices. Blogging remains important, however, as the traditional press rapidly embraced blogging, it has encouraged individual publishers to find new ways to spread their influence."

"…The search data seems to reflect what others have said - that web applications are not on most people's radar. This data is consistent with what Microsoft and Apple have said - people like their desktop apps. Web applications are in their infancy. It should be interesting to see if they will remain a niche category in the years ahead. The lack of the ubiquitous connectivity could be a major stumbling block."

B.L. Ochman came out with her predictions for 2008 today - B.L. Ochman's 2008 Online Marketing Predictions: Mobile, Subscriptions, Collaboration Rule and here's some that stood out to me.  I thought it also made sense to look at others that are out there so far.   I came out with my own 2008 predictions last week but found my mind too cluttered to come up with much about the Web - mine were mostly political, at this point - Predictions for 2008 and how I did with my 2007 Predictions.

Here's B.L's predictions I agree with:

"…Social networks will be the key driver of brand success as consumers increasingly trust each other’s opinions and distrust advertising and corporate crap. Dear CMOs and CFOs, The Cluetrain is not science fiction."

"…Special lighting for web cam broadcasts on Seesmic will be the must-have product of the moment. That's because nobody likes looking like a ghoul. :>)"

As an occasional user of Seesmic - I guess B.L. Ochman has a point.   How about something for the sound too - mine is always better if I wear a headset but I don't see everyone wearing headsets in Seesmic videos - so how do they do it?

"…The Internet will swing the 2008 election with its candidate of choice, who won't be one of the ones already in the running. MoveOn.org, which already has a huge membership base, will team up with Unity08 to choose which will come out in big enough numbers to swing the election."

I kinda agree, except I don't think there's much room yet for a candidate that's not running by now - Al Gore?   He doesn't seem all that interested - but if he is going to run, he needs to put his hat in the ring by March 2008.

Then again, an independent candidate that is not Democratic or Republican is going to difficult to get anything passed - whoever would run and win from an independent position much be so charismatic that most want to follow - I'm not sure even Al Gore fits that bill - but I guess if glacier brakes off from the Antarctic and floats into New York Harbor next year - Al Gore would be a shoe in - everyone would want to follow his lead then.   So if we're in the position of electing an independent - we'll need the attendant "crisis" to go with it - something world changing.

"… Mobile Rules - iPhones and similar devices that deliver true mobile internet access will replace laptops that everyone hates to carry no matter how light they pretend they are before you add the battery, etc.."

I think this is an easy prediction to support - it's clearly going in that direction with the iPhone and iPod Touch - but I think there needs to be a good Keyboard like the Sony 10mm Thin Organic TV display that's currently in development.

Perhaps a portable, fold able version of the Razer ProType Programmable Multimedia Keyboard with iPod dock along with improvements in the iPhone interface would do it - push us in to the entirely mobile world.

Ok, what about other predictions for 2008, so far:

BusinessWeek's Innovation Predictions 2008  don't seem so innovative or far fetched:

"… whole realm of social networking to change in 2008. Just when you "got it" and thought it was all about open, personal, and casual online relationships, social media will morph into another ecosystem—one with lots of gates."

Read/WriteWeb has a whole bunch of 2008 Predictions from several writers from that blog, the most notable being:

"…Twitter will be acquired."

"…Most ad networks will start producing their own content to advertise against; and some content companies today will get acquired by ad networks."

I've predicted that too…. that's why I'm mentioning it.

"… Mobile web usage will be a big story in 2008. It's already big in many parts of the world; and Westerners are about to get hooked. With new mobile devices that makes web surfing less painful, people will be more and more connected away from their computers."

Mobile usage going up - becoming more powerful - that's an idea I hear alot, so I give it more weight.

"…Google will really start looking vulnerable in 2008. While the 'one trick pony' comment by Steve Ballmer drew sarcastic responses, this will begin to look prophetic. While they'll maintain market share in the search industry, the lack of traction in any other of their other initiatives will start to cause frustration. Plus, they will increasingly be perceived as the 'evil' company in many of these new initiatives. "

Actually, that began in 2007 - and was talked about even before - it started with the DoubleClick acquisition - once Google went after DoubleClick - Google crossed the line and left being a Search Engine to become something else, sorta like Big Brother.  

The one belief powering Google is they believe they can do anything they choose better than anyone else - shatter that idea, and Google starts falling apart. The first defense for Google is buying up and owning companies and ideas that perform better than what they could do themselves - which is, of course, what they did with products like FeedBurner and DoubleClick.   

However, if they run into something they can't build as well and can't buy it (because someone else buys it first) ……Google's strategy begins to crack wide open.  Perhaps 2008 will see examples of that more often.

As far as Real Estate goes  - the Top  10 Real Estate Predictions for 2008 call for more of the same - declining values of Real Estate.

"…Median home prices will continue to fall in softened markets. They won't take a nose dive; though, they will float, ever-so-gently like a feather, slipping left to right and closer and closer to a landing spot."

That's a modest prediction - Paul Krugman in Charting the housing bubble

"….This chart shows the ratio of housing prices from OFHEO to the “owners’ implicit rent” from the BLS. Both are index numbers, 1982 = 1. This is more or less equivalent to the price-earnings ratio for stocks.

The red line shows the ratio for the United States as a whole. The blue line shows the ratio for the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

What the chart shows
is that this decade we’ve had a national housing bubble that is somewhat bigger than the bubble in LA in the late 1980s — a bubble that was followed by a 20% drop in nominal home prices, and a 30% fall in real prices. In LA itself, and in a number of other metropolitan areas, the bubble has been on a scale completely unprecedented in modern experience."

Paul Krugman's chart suggests that where Real Estate will fall - it will fall between 20%-30% putting many homeowners in "Negative Equity" - meaning they will owe far more on their mortgages than the houses are actually worth in 2008.  2008 will be a tough year for many homeowners.

Here's a video of Paul Krugman giving a talk at Google: