My predictions for 2005
Scoble's predictions for 2005 -- since everyone else is having so much fun:
1) Apple Computer will ship a computer that uses a pen and a digitizer that is combined with the screen. It won't, however, call this a "Tablet PC."
2) Several executives will get fired for NOT blogging. Why? Blogging helps get adoption and executives who don't get adoption will be cut. They might not be told it was for not blogging, but watch who replaces the execs who are ousted.
3) Several more people will get fired FOR blogging. Another one was reported today. Or worse yet, will get sued for what they write or do on their blogs. Blogging is dangerous business.
4) Tablet PC's will go mainstream. Froogle's #1 ranking is just a hint of what's coming.
5) Microsoft will be more interesting at the end of 2005 than at the beginning. And, in a year that just saw the launch of Halo 2, that's saying something.
6) Scoble will be taped to a tree on Microsoft's campus after he talked about blogs once too often.
7) Three things will join: cell phones. Hard drives. Skype. That convergence will get everyone to question whether the iPod has a future. Of course, if Steve Jobs has anything to say about it we'll probably be talking about the iPhone instead.
8) HDTV. It will be big. ger. Or something.
9) RSS will go mainstream. Why? Cause it'll be part of the browsing experience.
10) By the end of 2005 we'll all know what attention.xml is and why it's important for the services we choose to support it.
11) There will be a major disaster in 2005 and mainstream media will use citizen journalists in a new way to cover the disaster.
12) There will be several Fortune 1000 companies that build 24/7 blogging teams. Mostly for technical support reasons, but some for PR reasons to react to what Slashdot commenters write about their products at 3 a.m. right before the East Coast journalists wake up to start doing their aggregator runs.
13) Microsoft will open source a major product. My guess is it'll be Train Simulator since there's no hope that Train Simulator will ever be a runaway success like Halo 2, but Train Simulator still has hundreds of thousands of devoted fans.
14) There will be a couple of major marketing misteps because marketing directors will have thought that all they needed to do was a blog and everything else would fall into place.
15) The blogosphere will be embarrassed at least twice because things that we bloggers believe to be true will not turn out to be true. Oh, wait, that should have been a 2004 prediction. Heck, it happened twice this year, maybe it'll happen four times in 2005.
16) An executive at a major company will retire "to have more time to blog."
17) Apple Computer will think that podcasting is a way to lock people into the iPod platform and will buy iPodder for, oh, say, $300 million. Oh, wait, I forgot, Steve Jobs isn't Steve Case.
18) Dave Winer will get bored of driving around the USA. Will fly to Munich, buy a BMW, and start driving around Europe.
19) The PDC will sell out in 2005, even after bloggers report on everything that'll be shown there before the conference. Why? Well, see, hanging out in Universal Studios with Don Box and Chris Sells is cool enough. Who needs Longhorn, new gadgets, or a new Visual Studio when you have THAT?
OK, now, obviously this is all a bit tongue-in-cheek. I wish I really was good at predicting the future like John Battelle. But, I hope you all have a great holiday. Thank you so much for such a great year. Yes, even you Goebbels!
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