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).