2008 Web Predictions

Here are mine:

1. Semantic web searching will not even dent Google.

2. EVDO/UMTS/WiMAX will finally make the internet as ubiquitous as cellular phone technology. 2008 is the year of connected portable devices. Kindle, iPhone, and Dash are its origins.

3. The iPhone will gain a huge chunk of the mobile device market, and after the 3G version is introduced with a spiffy sdk, it will engulf Windows Mobile like a bear eating an ant.

4. This election will have the most informed voters in history due to the ease of research through Wikipedia. (Though the actual voting will be just as aimless.)

5. OpenID-based login systems will grow in popularity.

6. Michael Arrington will be punched repeatedly.

7. Ron Paul Graham will be elected president

1. Amazon Web Services continue to gain in popularity.

2. Google, Yahoo, etc will all continue to ignore the developers using AWS services and focus on end-user applications.

3. But.. familiarity with AWS services, apis and procedures will become the new skill headhunters will be seeking. Amazon will offer an "AWS" Certification.

4. Microsoft will announce (but not deliver) competitive services to AWS.

5. Meanwhile, we'll see plenty of GNU/OSS projects interoperate and compete with AWS as well.

>4. Non-search advertising on the web will increase in value significantly. This will be done through a lot of innovation in the ad targeting systems (both behavioral and contextual) and new metrics being adopted by Madison Ave beyond CPC and CPM.

This was the only prediction that caught my eye. I hadn't thought about it before but it's the obvious next step and I'm not talking about viral marketing. Along this vain I think you are going to see the first big push in 2008 for advertising in and with games as well as more utilization of direct interaction with bloggers, both written and video. I predict that in 2008 we will see companies support individual youtube producers in a way that will get noticed by the major media outlets.

Cyberdyne startup launches Skynet.

Hey, I think I did alright in that post. #3 came true (for the most part, though none of the big boys are relying parties). #2 was sort of half right. Sort of. And, #5 was a little bit right -- iPhone 3G has been one of the best-selling phones of the year and mobile apps are finally a big story (big enough to get mainstream television coverage, at least).