With the new year underway, it’s time to stick one’s neck out and make a few predictions for 2010.
Some predictions are easy, describing a trend that’s already underway. Others though are fraught with danger as it isn’t clear just how far media proprietors, telcos and other industries are prepared to go in protecting their old, threatened business models.
The big factor for 2010 is the world economy. If the green shoots of recovery continue through 2010 then the year will be very different from the one where the recovery is overwhelmed by another wave of bad news. Although for the technology sectors, either alternative may just accelerate trends that would happen regardless.
Each of these predictions are just a few short thoughts on each sector, over the next few weeks I’ll expand on most of these ideas, starting with the fast changing sectors such as cloud computing, social media and mobile telephony.
Smartphones continue their march
The proportion of smartphones sold will steadily increase as prices fall and consumers recognise the advantages. This will also drive development of mobile phone applications.
Telcos will struggle
As smartphone use increases, Telcos will struggle with the demand on their networks as we’ve seen with AT&T in the US. It may even be possible to see data prices increase as Telcos attempt to reduce traffic on overloaded systems.
Hardware prices will continue to fall
It’s a rare year we see technology hardware prices rise, but 2010 will be a particularly tough year for manufacturers as the world wide demand for computers stays subdued. We may even see some East Asian governments bail out struggling manufacturers because of these industries’ perceived strategic importance.
Social Media Hype Peaks
This is an easy prediction as for some months we’ve been seeing breathless reports on how Twitter is dead, Facebook’s growth is slowing and the whole social media thing was a passing fad for teenagers and technology dazzled forty somethings. We’ll see more of those stories through the year and probably see “what happened to Twitter mania” stories at the end of the year.
For smart workers and business this is a wonderful opportunity to experiment and grow using these tools while the luddites think they have won the war against pointless tech toys.
The death of the social media expert
As the hype exits the market, so too will the SEO and social media snake oil sellers. That’s not to say the entire SEO, social media training and consulting industries will fold; honest providers who add genuine value will survive, although some will find 2010 to be a tough year.
Things get worse for traditional media
As audiences continue to fragment and the advertisers cast their nets wider, things are going to go from bad to worse for the traditional media outlets. Reality is going to bite as once reliable cash cows go completely on line leaving publishers to deal with dwindling revenues and massive losses.
Paywalls work (kind of)
Newspaper proprietors will find Pay for View and paywalls can work, but the product has to be worth paying for. The realisation that readers aren’t prepared to pay for recycled agency stories, rewritten press releases and celebrity gossip will probably be the final straw for many magazines and newspapers.
Content wars are won and lost
As the most of the paywalls will fail, so too will the content farms. Early signs are these aggregators who either steal or publish cheap content are hurting bloggers and traditional media outlets, but over time this business model will collapse as thousands of identically worded rip off sites compete for search engine rankings. Expect Google’s, Bing’s and other search engines’ algorithms to get better at spotting these sites, further hastening their demise.
The cloud grows
As equipment and other Internet costs fall, the attraction of cloud computing and web2.0 will grow. Increasingly businesses, both big and small, will be finding the cost and utility benefits will make cloud computing an opportunity they can’t afford to miss.
The big question is where the world economy is going in 2010. The challenge for political and business leaders is to use the opportunity presented by the massive stimulus packages to put in place the reforms taming the excesses of the last decade which caused the Global Financial Crisis. Whether they are up to that challenge, or whether they get swamped by other wave of economic trouble, will be what 2010 is remembered for.
Regardless of where the economy goes in the short term, the continuing rise of cloud computing and smart phones means there are massive opportunities to be had. Fortune is going to favour the brave and those who can adapt quickly to a rapidly changing business world.