Brandon Paton

Over the past several weeks I have formulated some predictions for 2010. Overall, I am excited for the new year. If you would like to argue for or against any of these predictions, definitely leave a comment. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and happy holidays.

Search & Advertising

1. Wolfram|Alpha will be acquired by Google or Microsoft. If Microsoft acquires Wolfram, it will be in an effort to differentiate Bing, which it must to do in 2010 to gain any additional market share. On the other hand, Google would love to take Wolfram Alpha’s API out of Bing’s reach.
2. Real-time search will become more ubiquitous. The value of real-time will become largely evident, and will be more heavily incorporated in search engines.
3. Mobile advertising will remain a challenge in 2010, but progress will be made. 2011 will be the year for mobile advertising.
4. Local advertising will heat up.
5. More major brands will participate in social media.  Social media will become a standard and will be part of nearly all marketing efforts by the end of 2010.

Communication & Networking

1. Myspace will completely redesign their site to mimic Facebook’s, but the company will continue to fail. Myspace will survive the new year on revenue from their entertainment content (music, video, etc), as ad revenue decreases.
2. Twitter will monetize itself and become profitable with ads and pro accounts, along with revenue from current search deals. Twitter’s ads will be innovative (SuperTweets, maybe?) and will be eloquently incorporated into their service. Twitter will be tremendously selective of what companies advertise on Twitter, with only high budget, elite class advertisers appearing during the first few months.
3. Twitter will launch an image upload feature for sharing images, which will mark the end of twitpic, yfrog, etc.
4. Facebook will not go public, and user growth will slow. It will remain as the top social networking site at the end of 2010.
5. Facebook will launch a location-based feature, or acquire Foursquare.
6. Smart phones will proliferate, causing a rush of innovation in the mobile industry. Verizon and AT&T’s networks will increase in quality and stability.
7. The iPhone will relaunch on Verizon with record sales.
8. Several ground breaking phones will launch in 2010, one will come close to rivaling the iPhone.
9. Many more will drop their land-line phones to rely on their mobile devices.
10. A good alternative to @BreakingNews (which was acquired by MSNBC) will gain popularity.

Surfing the Web

1. Google Chrome will set a new precedent for browsers of simplicity, speed, and interoperability.
2. Google will lead the move toward browser based authentication with Chrome and Chrome OS.
3. Facebook Friend Connect will continue to gain in popularity, and will facilitate the transition from non-universal authentication to a standardized browser based authentication standard. Browser based authentication will not see strong traction until early 2011, at the earliest.
4. Internet Explorer will continue to suck.
5. Microsoft will launch a decent competitor to Google Docs, and people will actually use it.

Music & Video

1. As with landlines, cable subscriptions will fall in favor of services like Boxee and Hulu.
2. Major cable providers will begin to offer channels ala carte, in an effort to retain their customers.
3. A good iPod alternative will emerge, and it will not be the Zune.
4. Spotify will launch in the US, and Pandora will follow suit.

The Industry

1. The technology industry will do well, overall.
2. A popular internet service will have a successful IPO, causing a number of suitors to go public soon after. 2010 will host the largest number of IPOs since the dot-com boom, but with more realistic valuations.
3. eBay will see considerable losses to Amazon/niche.
4. The Internet will continue to infiltrate the offline world, with a twitter-integrated refrigerator being sold at major retail chains.

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