Predictions for 2007

All humbleness aside, I did great last year. Kind of easy, being as vague as possible. However, I nailed the Me2Revolution, they were just a lot quicker than I thought. So without further ado, I’ll try to be more specific and not copy too much from other pundits.

1. I will relocate to Hamburg and start with the PR-agency WBN, working mostly with clients in the area of renewable energy. Also, I am looking to bring PR 2.0, Social Media and the works to the agency.
     (obviously this one is in the books)

2. Google. One actually does not have to be Steve Gillmor to see it now in bright red letters. The only thing missing for the other 75% of SOHO users to convert is offline capability. Once Gmail and Gcal work offline there is no need for Mail, Outlook and the other apps and people will begin to realize what this “e-mail to your domain” thing actually is. And yes, tagging your email IS much better than putting it into folders.

3. Jason Calacanis has really turned his love to podcasting. However, his new venture will most likely not come out of this area. He has been critical of Adam Curry’s MO and he also said, that he’d like to scale something to somewhere around 5-10 million users. I don’t think podcasting or the industry surrounding it will get such a dominant player within the next two years. Sure, the player he, Rojas and Winer were discussing will become reality but that’s just a pet project, nothing to keep the man busy.
No. His connection with Gillmor as well as interest and understanding of the ad market will either land him a spot aboard the attention/gesture train (meaning at the Trust) or make him the first person to take a gesture-based company to profit heights.

4. Gillmor himself will get rid of the RSS feed on his blog and train his followers to ego-surf for his name to find his musings. And RSS is dead.
Well no. If the Gang with Mark Benioff was any indication, he’ll start a video podcast, most likely sponsored by Podtech (they are just like the Red Wings of 2002, the stars want to go there, even for less money). Also, the Gang will be revived, of course, in some way. And yes, todays Google Reader announcement says a ton about Gillmor’s work behind the scenes. Good things are about to come for the user, it says.

5. I agree with many others that a change in ebay management has to come, though, that does not mean there’ll be one. Just as MS will not prepare for the changes necessary in the next 10 years (keep xbox on the edge, HD content, etc). One of my favorite moments of last year’s CES was the intro to Gates’ speach. And look what has come to reality yet…Likewise, ebay is just cruising without a new goal.

6. There’ll be a new cell phone for me this year and I am afraid this is the biggest challenge of all. I have come to regret my last three phones within six months after purchase and this time this shan’t happen again. I’ll put a link in the right sidebar (featured projects) to keep you posted. Mobile computing is on the edge to being huge. I tried the Gmail-client on my wife’s cell phone and it is amazingly intuitive. The next version of mabber seems to be around the corner, plazes-mobile as well. Shozu doesn’t run on my SE V800 and I hate to send an email to flickr manually all the time. I have loads of ideas what to do with the cell phone myself so this is the year of the mobile phone. On a sidenote: Last week my wife and I watched a commercial for the N95 and she said, this looks like a phone for you… (I have a great wife!)

7. Now PR. After a bumby year 2006 for Edelman I think they’ll settle in just nicely and come away with another 2.0-ish award in Germany. As the year progresses, bloggers will miss bashing them as campaigns get positively noticed. Steve Rubel will speak at a Blue Hour in Hamburg, hopefully I won’t be on vacation and can congratulate him on both New York hockey clubs making the play-offs.
Crayon will be quiet in January but then make a splash for Coke. Look for audio and video with optional (optional for the user, obviously not for the campaign: the treasure will be hidden under the third rock off the smallest grotto on First Time Island) SL content. Imagine thirsty “Wilsons” looking for the holy can of Coke.

8. Video. So much has happened there in the last months. Now even the “team management” page of my fantasy hockey league has a little icon next to Shanahan’s name, pointing me to “highlights” of the last game. Much has been written about possible solutions for Google to integrate YouTube. I think after all legal games are played out, Adobe Apollo has been launched and Apple has introduced its next version of iTunes you’ll see the same thing happen as with blogs. Spam videos will be produced in quantities unimagined and new tools for the user to sift through all the crap will be needed. Jason will have one of his engadget buddies take care of it. Most exciting, Mike Arrington will launch Techcrunch TV, and once that reaches critical mass (after about four weeks), Mike will sell.

9. Browser. I watched the Maxthon video on the Scoble Show. And I am not impressed. Flock is the browser for me, hands down. Until, until Firefox 3 does something with microformats that convinces me otherwise.

10. There is a life without the web. And though it feels funny and one longs to check feeds, mails – and videos, it’s very worthwhile living.

Happy 2007

Technorati Tags: predictions, 2007, calacanis, stevegillmor, video, edelman, crayon, mobile, google, wbn