2007 predictions


Techbiz

1) YHOO will remain an independent entity, and will not merge with either AOL or MSFT
2) Yahoo! Search will close most of the search monetization gap with Google
3) In May 2007, journalistic coverage of Yahoo! will be more positive than negative
4) At the end of 2007, the search engines ranked by share of U.S. searches will be the same as it is today: 1) Google, 2) Yahoo!, 3) MSN (Live), 4) Ask.
5) Despite #3, at least one general web search engine will emerge during the year that is a quality disruptor – acknowledged privately by the major engines to be better than one or more of the majors, and a danger to the current engines, whether or not it is acquired in 2007 or remains independent.
6) In December 2007, Amazon’s move into the webservices business will be seen as a good move by the techbiz press.
7) On December 31, 2007, myspace.com’s three-month-average Alexa traffic rank will be greater than 10.
8) Renkoo.com will take off, and become the 2nd most-popular social-event-arranging service, behind only evite.com. If it is not acquired before then, its three-month-average Alexa traffic rank will be 2000 or below on 12/31/07. [Disclaimer: I have a stake in Renkoo, by marriage.]

Politics

1) The front runner and presumptive Presidential nominee for the Democratic party in December 2007 will be Barack Obama
2) The front runner and presumptive Presidential nominee for the Republican party in December 2007 will be John McCain
3) In December 2007, climate change will be a top-5 issue in polls of likely voters in the ’08 presidential elections.
4) On December 31, 2007 there will be fewer U.S. troops deployed to Iraq than there are today (Jan 1, 2007).

Sports

1) Michigan will beat Ohio State in their 2007 football matchup.

More Posts

8 responses to “2007 predictions”

  1. Neil

    The disrupter could be the vertical search engines that come out into the market to target searching more effectively. For example http://www.targ8.com has developed a simple search engine that can also look up popular directories and with a simple drop down option, keeping search more effective but simple to use….

    Reply
  2. whoopee

    addressing ‘techbiz’, point by point:

    1) panama has a year to pan out. if it doesn’t, investors will trash the stock into single digits and MSFT or GOOG will acquire. MSFT would be moving in already if the valuation was amenable, they must realize now their own brand is dead online.

    2) doubtful

    3) depends on (1)

    4) yes

    5) astroturf for powerset? i guess its allowed in your own blog

    6) doubtful…AMZN likewise is one downturn away from being an acquisition target

    7) sort of agree, its faddish and will drop fast once it gets stale. same for facebook. social will be a nightclub business.

    8) not sure anyone cares

    some of my own:

    1) GOOG has a disappointing quarter (relatively), and takes down a fair share of NASDAQ with it

    2) calls for Yahoo to “get on with it” and retire terry will get louder when panama fails to meet the insane expectations placed on it

    3) EBAY and AMZN continue to tread water and become acquisition or merger targets

    4) apple phone flops

    5) open source advocates turn on mysql.com

    6) secondlife has a die-off

    7) a dozen myspaces come in and fill the gap as the social market fragments across demographic and clique lines

    Reply
  3. Timboy

    Whoopee —

    Heh. That would be fairly indirect astroturf, wouldn’t it? Obviously I was thinking in part of Powerset, and wouldn’t be going there if I didn’t think that they had a shot at being disruptively good. But a lot of VC funding is going to companies with that disruptive goal and Powerset’s funding is a small piece of that total.

    With regard to Renkoo and “not sure anyone cares” – did you think I chose what to blog about based on what would interest _other_ people? You must be new here.

    With regard to predictions and anyone caring: you’re posting predictions _anonymously_? 🙂 How to we know who to ridicule a year from now? Isn’t most of the fun of making a prediction that you can’t disown it when you turn out to be wrong? If you put your money where your mouth is, would you bet exactly $0? 🙂

    Reply
  4. whoopee

    yes i would bet exactly $0, because there is of course a very good chance i could be completely wrong as i have been in the past.

    in fact i have been stupendously wrong about a great many tech predictions in the past, some of my greatest non-hits:

    – yahoo answers, which has taken off when i thought it would die

    – youtube. i never trashed them per se, but never really grasped its traction

    – google’s ability to stay up in the air as long as it has

    – amazon’s ability to not get walmartted as long as it has

    i will continue batting .333 in the prediction category.

    Reply
  5. joe

    Not a chance on Obama..

    Reply
  6. whoopee

    i retract my iphone flop prediction after seeing it. my new prediction: they will have ten million orders placed on the first day it is available.

    Reply
  7. Search engine placement

    “[Disclaimer: I have a stake in Renkoo, by marriage.]”

    That was hilarious.

    Reply
  8. Dave Pasternack

    I doubt on the Renkoo one

    Reply

Leave a comment