TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Predictions for 2008, #4: Apple & iTunes Stumbles

Continuing my series of predictions for 2008 (also see number one, and number two, about boingboing and yahoo respectively, and number three about semantic apps): to balance out Yahoo’s prophesized resurgence, someone must fall - and I think Apple’s due.

Actually, this is two predictions in one: firstly, DRM will continue to wither, and the sale of naked MP3’s will continue to take off. From this follows my second prediction - that iTMS (iTunes Music Store) will stumble in sales growth numbers as the DRM-less revolution Apple kicked off allows competitors to sell into the iPod ecosystem for the first time.

The end of DRM’d music is a great boon for consumers, who now have legal options for high-quality, downloadable music that plays anywhere. Indeed, the downloadable music sector as a whole will continue grow (and CD’s will continue to gather dust on store shelves), but I’ll bet that Apple’s iTMS growth will underperform the industry - i.e.: new competitors like Amazon will get get a non-zero slice of marketshare for the first time.

That’s how I know Apple really loves consumers: they’re willing to break down their own ludicrously profitable walls for the betterment of the overall consumer experience. (see: Steve’s open letter)

2008, apple, drm predictions

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Predictions for 2008, #3: Semantic apps will continue to suck

Well, “suck” is probably too strong a work. How about “Semantic apps will continue to be completely irrelevant?”

2007 was a year heavy on buzz around so-called next generation, 3.0, semantic apps - things like PowerSet & Hakia (natural language search), Spock (people search), Twine (who knows), and so on.

Well, after a year of anticipation, each is either unlaunched (powerset), unloved (spock is weak), or unheard of (twine).

Consider the value propositions:

1. Spock promised powerful people search, and so far has delivered a (drum roll)… social network scraper. See “idiocy writ large” for reference.
2. Next gen search engines promised better results than google and so far have delivered… junk. See my off the cuff Hakia vs. Google comparo for reference.
3. Apps like Twine promise to automate the discovery of relationships between your disparate bits of information - but if you listen to the video there’s a lot of buzzwords (semantic graph! open! graph! wikis! ontologies!) and little substance (its got smarts!) beyond keyword parsing.

…so my prediction is that Google will continue to kick ass, the so-called next-gen startups will continue to languish or sit or beta-purgatory, and slowly the concept of “semantic” will fade from the public eye as VC’s find something else to latch onto.

(Quick update: Twine has also committed what I consider to be the cardinal sin of marketing plans - attempting to create their own vernacular, i.e.: in scoble’s video above one “twines” a link, and creates a “twine” about something - arggh. Its as bad as the now defunct Teqlo)

2008, google, hakia, powerset, predictions, semantic, spock, twine web3.0

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Predictions for 2008, #2: Yahoo! Resurgent

Yesterday kicked off my post-Christmas blogging with my first 2008 prediction - that BoingBoing would continue its devolution into a Cory Doctorow bookstore and link farm for BBGadgets.

One thing I didn’t want to continue with Prediction #2 is the tendency to forecast doom and gloom. Its really easy to pick out organizations that are stumbling and place a bet on their demise, and a lot of predictions lists read like a gleeful financial Grim Reaper’s shopping list.

So what are the bright lights for 2008? Believe it or not, I’d like to imagine that one of them is Yahoo. I know this is probably pushing the bounds of credibility, but for what its worth, I think the impact from the removal of Terry Semel will take years to really percolate down through Yahoo’s silo’d organization - and that 2008 will be the year when meaningful change can really take place.

1. Positve: Yahoo’s ditched Semel. Since starting at Yahoo in 2001, Wikipedia claims Semel has made off with $500 million. $500 MILLION. During which time Yahoo has stumbled, stagnated, hemorrhaged management talent, and generally fallen apart. Semel apparently managed to impart zero vision and leadership to the organization.
2. Negative: The management exodus will hurt for a while (Rachel Glaser, Scott Gatz, Neil Budde, Cameron Marlow, Andy Baio, etc.). That’s a lot of knowledge equity and relationship-power to have walk out of your company, and each troubled departure leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those left behind.
3. Positive: Yahoo’s till a traffic bull.
4. Positive: Yahoo has lots of great properties - Flickr, Upcoming, Del.icio.us, Yahoo Mail, etc. - a little vision could combine traffic & properties into a spectacular social-networked experience. Yahoo also has a powerful international presence.
5. Negative: Yahoo still doesn’t seem able to execute on anything. The peanut butter manifesto has faded from the radar, and Jerry Yang’s 12 months of change must be close to over by now - with little material difference to Yahoo’s properties. Is it a product of management flight? Or has execution been delayed while management is reorganized post-Semel?

So: ultimately, by my estimation, Yahoo has the traffic and basic building blocks to return to Internet stardom. The chief thing holding Yahoo back has been management structure and leadership - and I’d like to think that 2008 will be the year that Yahoo starts to get its house in order on both accounts.

2008, predictions, semel yahoo

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Predictions for 2008, #1: Cory D. just don’t quit

Over the holidays, James Thomas pinged me to ask what my 5 predictions for 2008 (cheers, James!). James sees…

1. Mixx takes off vs. Digg [disagree]: I tend to think not; despite all of the posturing about leaving that takes place anytime there’s a digg-directed digg-storm, the user base seems alarmingly loyal. And, arguably the conditions that created the source of digg’s value (its loyal, active community) will be hard to recreate for a knock-off - so far, the only successes in the “community curation” space (arguably) have been Fark, Slashdot, and Digg - each of which was ahead of its time and grew organically.
2. The RIAA floundering [no comment]: Hard to say; are there any verifiable metrics around the profitability of the legit non-drm MP3 sales taking place?
3. Mint dying [agree]: The “winner” of the TC40 is a lame credit-card pushing branded version of a white label financial services aggregator. Everything I’ve read about it is that its a big pile of suck. My financial details will never go near it; I expect few people’s will.
4. Napster dying [agree]: Please, let it be quick.
5. Adobe Flex/AIR taking off [no comment]: I don’t know enough about the rich application development space to agree or disagree. MS’s Silverlight seems to be an also-ran already though.

So: James kicked things off with what I think are some great calls. Without unneccessary preamble, here’s the first of my five, ranked by frivolity, starting with the most frivolous. 4 more to follow over the next few days!

TechFold 2008 Prediction #1

Cory Doctorow’s books will continue to get translated into other languages, and BB will continue to tell us about it, over and over and over and over again, until if we read the un-word “Scroogled” ever again, we’ll start screaming. Latvian, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Macedonian, Polish, Spanish, Dutch, Bulgarian, German, Russian, and Persian. Please make it stop.

The sub-text here is that between posts about Cory’s books, Gamma-Go! hoodies, BBgadgets, and BBtv, BoingBoing - a leader in blogging as a movement and political advocacy as a lifestyle - is becoming less of the cultural force that it once was, and more of the kitschy merchandise shop that it apparently wants to be.

2008, boingboing, mentallyretired, predictions scroogled

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!