10 Predictions for 2008

I meant to write this up earlier and post it earlier, but man oh man this cold has been killing me. Here are my predictions for 2008. I’ve also tried to keep these predictions more tech-focused.

1. Broadband Adoption in the American home continues to stall or make very minor progress. Last summer, Pew Charitable Trusts reported that 47% of adult Americans have high-speed internet connections at home - up from 42%. This year, with consumers unable to use home equity as a source of income, energy prices continuing to soar, and wages continuing their meager growth, something has to give - and I’m pretty sure it won’t be heating or driving. Heck, just yesterday AT&T reported that they saw a spike in service disconnection. For many Americans, receiving a DVD via the Postal Service will be a high speed connection.

2. There will be a major privacy breach by some store/government agency/popular online site - it will make the news cycle for a day, but will then be replaced by a piece on Britney Spears. This is kind of cheating since this kind of stuff happens already, but the gist of this prediction is that in 2008, people will continue to not care about privacy as much as they should.

3.  Vonage dies. Have you seen their cash flow? Subscription businesses are tough!

4. Tivo dies. Or is acquired by another company. Again, subscription businesses are tough!

5. Web 2.0 shrinks a little. In the last 2 years, we’ve seen a dramatic growth in Web 2.0 UCG/Social Networking/Blog sites that received VC funding. Many have said that it feels kind of like 1999/2000. I agree. I think the number of these ventures will decrease in 2008, as will funding.

6. Gas will consistently stay at over $4 a gallon in the Bay Area this summer. In fact, gas will be more expensive everywhere than it was last year. But yet American driving habits won’t change - because we simply can’t due to the way we’ve built our suburban society. Cul-de-sac anyone?

7. Inflight wifi won’t fly. There were a few articles towards the end of last year about announcements about carriers offering inflight wifi. I believe some will offer it, but eventually they’ll abandon it. Either that, or the service will be very limited - for example, you won’t be able to access YouTube and you will only be allowed to use lynx and/or pine (but not together.)

8. Consumer satisfaction with cell phone carriers will continue to suffer. Despite all the interesting announcements at the end of last year about open this, open that, the status quo will not change, and Americans will continue to rank their satisfaction with the mobile phone networks poorly. We will see more articles about bandwidth caps being reached by consumers They’ll continue to have low operating margins in the 5-6% range.

9. Blackout! This summer, there will be a regional that will make the national news due to ever increasing power consumption and a warm summer. Everyone will look back at the learnings from 2003 and realize that we still really didn’t do much to improve the situation.

10. Spending on online ads continues to soar, despite recession. The economy won’t be doing so well, but companies will finding that spending on online ads is cheaper and delivers a better return on investment than other advertising channels. As a result, while the economy shrinks, online ad spends will not.

Well, these are my 10 predictions for 2008. Let’s see how things pan out.