Experience Matters

2008 Prediction Recap: History Repeating

A year ago today, I put on my prognostication cap and looked to what we’d see in 2008. At the time, I declared that I was playing it safe, owing to “not seeing any change”. Well, when you play it safe, you’ll probably get things more right than wrong. 

In that sense, I did pretty well for predicting. But that’s also like saying the Dallas Cowboys will probably win against your local high-school team — not really cheating, but going with the obvious. 

That said, I’m still going to go over what I said, and toss in some new commentary.

• Silverlight
  I’ll go out here and say I was an ass on this one. I called out Microsoft for trying to create a “Flash killer”, when all they were really trying to do is put in a rich-media aspect on their already powerful development environment. So far, Silverlight is waiting for its killer app, but it’s certainly proven popular with some developers that I’ve talked to. 
• Bandwidth
  I got this one wrong, by the looks of it. Broadband rollout in the US increased heavily, and seems to have a wide rollout in Europe as well. China remains a weird mix (high in major developed centres, but still low in rural areas), and that’s about as far as I can get before stats become conjecture. 
• Mobile/Wireless (aka Impact of the iPhone)
  This one is debatable. Although the 3G iPhone was a major hit, and was very quickly followed by similar devices, I still say the North American market is a disaster area. The oligarchies in the United States and Canada continue to charge outrageous fees for services (did you know that text messages are actually free to the carriers?), and you’re limited to what networks you can use. So while the iPhone did bring some new toys to the sandbox, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck inside it.
• Device independence
  This remains a lofty goal, and I hold that it will remain that way until someone figures out how to break the walls down.
• China’s rise in internet dominance
  Another debatable one. Although China comprises the fastest rising percentage of users, they don’t get to consume as much as others. The IOC made a serious blunder when they believed that China would change because of the Olympics, and the Great Firewall of China is back in operation. Still, the potential is huge.  
• Web 3.0
  I’m so happy that I didn’t actually hear anything about this during 2008, even with a visit to a Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Looks like clarity hit the industry, after all! 
• OLPC
  Hard to say if this is an advancement or a setback, but orders for OLPCs are continuing with the request for Windows XP instead of the Linux OS. Hopefully this leads to greater global computing, and wider education, regardless. (Frankly, I didn’t much like the built-in OLPC OS, so hopefully this makes things better overall.)
• Open source continues to gain popularity
  I underestimated this one. It’s not about software anymore. People are open-sourcing just about anything, from software, to aquarium technology, to cars, to satellite technology. So here’s a toast to open-sourcing as an alternative to patent trolls. 
• Exo-browser applications
  Partial failure on this one. While I still say the emphasis remains on the browser, the reality is that the App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the widgets for things like the newer smartphones have a massive potential. If only there was a way to get out of the locked boxes and allow them to share apps across the platforms.  
• Google
  Anyone else saw Chrome coming? I mean, truly saw it? Sure, there were lots of rumours, but when I caught wind that fateful morning a few months back, I was shocked. Told you Google would do something like that. Still the #1 search engine, and still (mostly) untouchable. Mind you, if the #2 search engine (Yahoo!) can take a severe beating from stock prices after a botched takeover, anything is possible.
• Browser War
  Despite Chrome’s lauch, this is still correct — browser wars were (and still are) a non-event. About the only thing I got wrong was that IE8 didn’t make it out into release before the end of the year. I’ll take that as a good thing (namely that they’re getting the bugs out).
• Digital advertising
  We saw some pretty innovative ideas in ads this year, from banner ads to interactive advertising on street corners, to (in some places) better mobile advertising support. The Great Digital Ad Confluence is still coming though, folks. Just wait…
• We’ll know everything about you
  Apparently, thanks to some really sloppy security and skillful hackers, a lot of people know a lot more about other people. As far as marketing goes, it’s still pretty much business-as-usual.

Okay, so there’s the recap from last year. Overall, I think that’s a passing grade. But who cares so much about a recap, when there are new predictions to be made?

Speaking of which…