Predictions for 2007 – How did I do?
This year has seen this blog grow by around 50% in terms of visits, page views and visitors. It’s a topic for another article, but I don’t want to think how much it would have cost me to get the vagueware name in front of the 14,000 unique visitors who have passed through here any other way.
Anyway, one of the most popular articles at the start of 2007 was my predictions for 2007 which was written before I realised the futility of prediction. Anyway, I figured it would only be fair if I now sat down and went through them and worked where I was right, where I was wrong.
Hardware
Apple will make great strides in 2007: Well, their share price more than doubled over 2007 and is now flirting with $200. One colleague in the states who does freelance installation/network admin work tells me orders through him for Apple kit in SMEs now beats PC orders five to one. Yes, five Apple orders for every PC order. Either something weird is happening in Florida/his neighbourhood, or something more interesting is happening.
I said I was expecting an Apple mobile phone: now seems so obvious, but at the start of 2007 there was absolutely no hint of the iPhone. I should have predicted the absurd pricing as well, but hey-ho.
[E]ither a 12” Macbook Pro, or possibly a tablet, perhaps with a smaller screen: No such luck.
8-core Mac Pros: Yay!
iTV, which I expect to emerge with better Video-on-demand services here in the UK: Early days on this one. It’s getting there though.
Video-On-Demand is going to be a big player in 2007 in the UK with BT, Sky, ntl:Telewest and others all edging into the market: I think I get partial credit on this one. I’ve been predicting VoD going big since 1998, but am constantly surprised by the ineptitude of the major networks. Even so, all major players have got into the mix.
By year end, it should be possible to buy for a smallish fee a programme without advertising embedded in it: Hmmmm. Kind of. I expected this to be a lot more solid, but at the moment the providers are still flirting with the tech.
[B]roadcasters and content-owners will be attempting to chase Apple and the record labels down the long tail: this one, I get a win on. BBC, ITV, C4 are all trying to build systems (and starting to co-operate on a system) that allows them to get iTunes out of the mix so that they aren’t held over a barrel as the US networks are.
Score: 5.5 out of 8 predictions
Software
Winner will be Linux: Some will argue over this, but ultimately we’ve seen open source operating systems fly this year. Dell will ship you a Linux box pre-installed, and Asus ship their EEE PC with a build of Linux on-board by default. You might argue it’s not getting dominant yet, but consider it in the context of my other prediction for OS roll-outs this year:
Vista will not fly: Consumers, SMEs, Enterprises alike all claim that Vista is not ready for them. They’re really asking what all that money is for, and I expect a lot of people are just waiting for more fixes before they’ll take a serious look at it. But if XP or Linux does everything you need, why upgrade? The innovation just isn’t coming out of Microsoft right now in the right places.
Ubuntu gain[s] market share: It has, but by nowhere near as much as I expected.
Apple will leverage consumer-friendly hardware, combined with consumer/family-focused enhancements in Leopard: See above. They are, but the late release of Leopard hurt them.
It may be we see a management shake-up at Microsoft: What I meant here was Ballmer needs to go. Ah well…
Firefox will gain market share: Ding! It has from all the figures I’ve seen, but again by nowhere near the amount I expected.
OpenOffice and similar well-developed open-source tools will gain audience: Ditto.
Score: 6 right out of 7 predictions
The Web
A paradigm shift in search: The team I was thinking of when I wrote this are still in closed beta. I’m getting worried. A lose for me here.
Huge improvements in machine translation of foreign language material: Ditto. I saw beta code in November 2006 that was good enough to launch with, and they’ve just gone quiet all year. I’m seeing a trend here with companies with great coders and great ideas going nowhere.
The Web 2.0 fiscal bubble will burst: I think the phrase has burst and people now just accept that social graphs and ‘collective intelligence’ as well as AJAX are just standard business practice. However the financials are actually getting scarier, with the big headline being an effective evaluation of Facebook touching $15 billion.
Adobe’s Apollo will be a much talked-about release: It was, but nowhere enough. Microsoft’s competing tech that I won’t even dignify with a name-check due it’s inate craptard-ness got more PR coverage.
I suggested that Apollo would also contribute to a new era of local application and web application integration: alas, not yet. Then again, like VoD I’ve been predicting this for years and thinking it was just around the corner.
Microformats will take a leap forward: I can’t in all honesty call this a win. They are exactly where they were a year ago – pretty much stale and needing easier adoption.
Popularism and effectiveness will start to replace academic philosophy in terms of determining the right standards for the Web to follow: Another loss. The W3C is still in charge, and still going exactly nowhere in the vain belief their discussions and papers are adequate replacements for working software.
Mobile web access will take off: I’ll take a win on this. 3G dongles, more WiFi everywhere, the iPhone and Nokia N95 providing better web experience on the move means in the UK this is happening. In the developing World, most people’s first use of the net is through a mobile phone, and that trend is only accelerating.
Uptake in Skype and similar free/flat-rate services on mobile devices: Almost. Data tariffs have got a lot more sensible over 2007 with T-Mobile and Vodafone leading the charge, but it’s still not at the point where most people are shoving their calls onto VoIP services.
Advertising to handsets will be resisted by consumers: Nope. Not really been tried in the sense I meant – operators using location data to target advertising – but Google is only just starting to ramp up their efforts.
The click-fraud problem will finally hit home: Alas not. We still think those Google CTRs are real.
More services will charge the consumer directly: I’ve got no data on this, but I think it’s a loser. I’m seeing more ads (or rather my ad blocker is blocking more) and the move seems to be about trying to get users on-board for free.
Score: I’m giving myself 2.5 out of 12 predictions here.
Programming
Agile methods will become the dominant lingua franca of programming: I’m only really looking at the Rails/Web industry here but I think this is a win. By the end of 2007 I was seeing projects being down in Waterfall and almost fell over. I’m not sure if that’s the case outside of my niche though.
Bespoke design and development web-shops will struggle: An unfortunate win for me on this one. In the North of England alone I know of one major web development firm going into receivership, and just before Christmas half a dozen SMEs closed up shop permanently. I think companies with great reputations are getting repeat work, but it’s getting harder to start up and compete against foreign operations charging nearly nothing. Personally, I concluded by the end of the year I want out of this sector: it’s dying, and dying hard.
Instead of going to a ‘web design company’ for a site, by the end of 2007 we’ll see clients starting to go to specialists/developers will need to start to know market sectors just as well: Many will argue this hasn’t happened. I say it has. I’m getting work now because I have experience of two sectors: online video and extranet applications. I would find it hard to get something in say retail right now, customers are looking for portfolios as much as they are skills.
Costs of development will come down: I claimed at the time this was only going to start in 2007 and it would 3-4 years to shake down. A win for me, I think.
Score: 4 out of 4 predictions here. I said at the start of 2007 this was the one I expected to get wrong the most, but it looks like I have a better handle on the trends underneath the industry than I thought.
Society
Now onto my more wishy-washy “armchair economist/politician” predictions.
Gordon Brown will struggle to become the next PM: Wrong.
All parties will try and find a way to re-connect to membership: Another loss, but the funding issues are still there. Personally I’m amazed that cronyism is still alive and well in Whitehall.
The EU Constitution will get a kick in the pants: Win. It’s back on the board, and we’re now arguing whether it’s a constitution or not.
Crash caused by consumer debt: Is a ‘squeeze’ the same as a ‘crash’? I’ll give myself half a win on this.
I went on to say I thought it would effect the house price market only by way of a slow-down: Win!
China will grow it’s GDP by about 10%: We won’t get the full figures until March next year, but looks like a win
I said environmentalism will be front and centre for 2007, with all countries, including the USA, putting it at the top of the agenda: I only got this as a win by a couple of weeks. We’re now on-course to stopping the madness, albeit it too slowly.
CFL lightbulbs will become standard: Win. You might be able to buy standard bulbs still, but do you know anybody who actually still buys them?
At least one new form of renewable energy, distinguishable from wind, solar, etc. get announced in 2007: Nope, a loss. But we’re seeing better/more efficient uses of wind and solar.
Iraq will head into full-blown civil war: I’m surprised by this one. It’s not in full-blown civil war, and where the US are in control the surge is actually having an effect. Where the British just pulled back though is sounding very grim.
Iran will end up extending their borders and taking control of at least part of Iraq: Maybe not officially, but in practice this has happened. They’re running operations all over the place, and I think it’s only a matter of time before they just stick their flag down and say “this is ours” somewhere in the South. Given that’s where the oil is, expect a reaction. Half-a-win here.
Score: 6 out of 11 predictions correct.
I also sneakily put in a prediction for 2008, that being Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States: well, technically he won’t get inaugurated until January 2009 but it’s starting to shape up well and his campaign has what politicos in the states call “the big mo” – i.e. unstoppable momentum.
Conclusion
Over the course of 2007 I realised the futility of prediction, and gave a talk at BarCamp Leeds (still to go online) about how rubbish Futurology is. I’ve surprised myself here by being better at some predictions than others. Strangely, the areas where I took less outside influence and opinions – programing and software – I scored better at than those where I had read a lot of ‘professional’ analysis like politics, the web industry and hardware.
Out of 42 predictions I got just 24 right. Statistically, that’s in the noise, but it’s not too shabby. Some of my predictions were long-shots and the gambler in me knows that if I’d managed to get odds on them all, I’d be in profit. Even so, I’m not if I want to try and make predictions for 2008. I’ll sleep on it.
