Prediction Anticipation

David Card | January 08, 2008, 06:00 PM

Yikes, it's getting into January, and I continue to slack on delivering my 2008 media and technology predictions. (Although I'm not going to pull the "I'd tell you, but I'm under NDA" trick.) But first, how'd I do last year?

I thought Social Media would be huge and fragmented, but I didn't think we'd see another monster brand emerge beyond MySpace and YouTube. Whoops. Oh, yeah, that Facebook thing is kinda popular. I said we'd figure out what kind of marketing works on social networks, and we did make some progress there, but I also thought the industry would define engagement metrics. That's ongoing (we've got multiple Jupiter reports on the subject coming very soon. I'll update the link.)

I thought Three-Screen Media would remain fragmented, unprofitable, and that no user would pay for UGC video. (Will advertisers?) All correct -- and easy -- but I thought we'd make a little more progress on mobile video than we did. Similarly, in Mobile Media & Marketing, I said there'd be no real money this year (except SMS voting) and no new big media brands.

I was pretty good at non-events, several of which continued from 2006:
- No luck for the search guys applying their skills off-line
- No serious blog ad dollars or audiences
- No successful niche social networks
- No US music phone or OTA download impact
- No death of hits (in the face of long-tail content)

All on the money. Oh yeah, I didn't think Apple would do a phone in 07. Probably my worst call since rejecting the idea of consumer DVD sales (vs. rentals).

My requisite flippant management/merger predictions weren't bad, either:
- Tivo still hasn't been acquired. Should I go for three years in a row?
- As predicted, Yahoo didn't get bought, and Sir Howard didn't get fired at Sony.
- As predicted, News Corp. bought Dow Jones.

2008 predictions coming soon. Stay tuned.