When we look back on 2007 in a few years, these ten topics and companies will be the milestones that will be referenced and debated:
- 1. Google Pushes Its Power
- 2. Aggregators Polluted by the Mobs
- 3. Mobile Web. Why?
- 4. User-Submitted Profits
- 5. Apple Leaps
- 6. Microsoft Tumbles
- 7. DRM. Die. Die. Die.
- 8. Main Stream Media Invasion
- 9. Politics' Internet Fruitfulless
- 10. Social Network Assimilation
1. Google
Google is currently the most powerful technology company in the world. With dominance in search and advertising, profits and stock prices have been impressive.
This year will be remembered as the point that google starting flexing its power to change people's actions on the internet. Matt Cutts confirmed that google would punish people buying and selling links to influence search engine placement.
Google decreased the clickable adsense area which decreased some publishers' income by well over 50%.
Google has openly started attacking social networks such as Facebook by joining the smaller networks through the OpenSocial API and by socializing Google services such as Google Reader. This dilutes the power that any one social networking system has. Google's purchase of Jaiku is a direct competitor to IM candy Twitter. Google's Android dilutes the potential power of a cellular network as well.
Wikipedia and squidoo will soon be feeling the google crunch next. Collaborative content is one of the most amazing products being created and delivered on the internet. Google's Knol wants to compete here as well. Like many others, TechCrunch is worried about the conflict of interest:
Google says that Knol pages will be indexed into their search engine but will have no special ranking. That's a little bit untrue, since they'll be hosted by Google and will have the advantage of Google's hefty PageRank to lift them in search results. And since no one will be auditing Google to ensure that Knol pages are treated just like everyone else, there are bound to be claims of conflict of interest.
This first started by competing with Microsoft through online services. Is Google's strategy to dilute any potential collection of power?
2. Web 2.0 Aggregators
Digg and Reddit have moved away from tech. Sad.
Mob Rule. Tyranny of the Majority. Ochlocracy. Whatever you call it, these sites are the weak, fluffy versions of what they used to be. As the less-geek have moved in, the content of these aggregators have followed. Even the creators cannot control the sites anymore.
Unless you have a large social connection within these sites, you have no chance of getting an article viewed… (unless you pay for it.) Socializing is more important than quality.
Although I view both of these sites on a daily basis, they are frequently gamed, overcome with political manipulation, often filled with spamish links, and are utterly unrealiable as news sources.
What's the alternative? You can always read what the A-List boys's club is echoing about on techmeme. Or you can watch the main stream news… which is frequently gamed, overcome with manipulation… You get the idea.
3. Mobile Web
The mobile web is growing and growing. However, unless you are selling ringtones, nobody has figured how to make money from it. Even mobile web experts are puzzled on the exact nature of making money through mobile devices.
Plus, does there have to be a special "mobile web" anymore? The iPhone displays regular web content through a cell interface. Instead of manipulating content to look pretty on tiny browsers, manipulate the cell web browser to view existing content well on the cellular interface. When was the last time you remember visiting a mobi site?
4. User-Submitted Profits
Everybody is making money on the back on the users.
NewsVine, Squidoo, Wikipedia, Digg, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook. If you really think about it, none of these companies would work without the public building content for them. You are building content for them. Congratulations! When do you expect your check?
Even blogs and forums get boost from comments and discussions created within their communities. (Please comment, please, please, please…)
How long will people continue to sow content in the sites of others for free?
5. Apple
I personally believe that this was an amazing year for Apple. Apple stocks are certainly booming.
The iPhone has changed the cellular landscape that parallels how the iPod changed the portable musical player market. Apple's commericals are painfully clever in their attacks against Microsoft. Leopard's problems have been far less damaging than Vista's which has helped as well. Overall, more and more people are considering moving to Apple's platform.
Apple has shown areas of weakness, however. The AppleTV push has really died for the general public. With an anorexic iTunes movie selection, the AppleTV has little appeal to the nongeek. iTunes itself is having growing pains with content providers. NBC/Universal have decided to play hardball with TV shows and music. It's difficult to know how it is going to play out. Apple is understandingly becoming weaker and weaker for DRM as well.
Being less ambitious than Vista has played well for Leopard. However, the new OS X is still causing growing pains for a lot of people. Feeling the vapor, we are still wondering where the much promised ZFS is?
6. Microsoft
As a one time Microsoft zealot, I am pained to see what has happened to Microsoft this year. Vista is failing because it has taken users too many steps as once. We all had to throw away most of our old hardware when XP rolled out. Most of us accepted this because the pre-XP experience was so unstable. XP was the successful promise of easy usage and stability. I wanted to install XP for my parents because I knew it would make things easier for them.
Today the market is different. Things worked pretty well before Vista. People do not want to sacrifice most of their hardware to get things working correctly. Plus, now we have 32-bit versus 64-bit discussion and "ultimate" products that add little except confusion.
Away from the OS, Microsoft's search engines and ad networks are stagnant, and Microsoft certainly seems to be trying to kill html email usability. From my experience at FOWD, Sean Siebel is not an impressive "User Experience Evangelist." At least Scoble tried.
Microsoft has made a few positive steps this year. The Microsoft Home Server is a new idea for a new market. If done well, it could be an essential box in every household. IE7 is a large improvement over IE6. Microsoft is investing in Facebook. Even the second Zune release (and the free software upgrade to the first version) is finally generating a little positive Microsoft buzz. Silverlight and Surface are sexy and innovative.
7. DRM
Could 2007 be the year that DRM finally starts to die?
Die. Die. Die.
Shawn Fanning's original idea of drm-free Napster could exist in several different forms over the next few years. iTunes Plus and Amazon's DRM free shows that the big guys are creeping into this direction. Steve Jobs thinks this way, too.
Radiohead's In Rainbows "pay us what you want" experiment is exciting. Saul Williams and Trent Reznor are doing something similar.
Give them the music for free and sell them on the other stuff. It's coming.
8. Main Stream Media
How about give them the content for free, too?
The New York Times is finally free. Online circulation is having to make up for the dying dead trees distribution:
Nationwide, average daily paid newspaper circulation declined 2.6 percent in the six months that ended Sept. 30, compared with the previous year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an independent organization that monitors the industry. Sunday circulation dropped 3.5 percent nationwide during the same period.
As the main stream media looks to supplement eyeball views with online content, their articles are appearing more and more in news aggregators. How long until we figure out that some of digg's top users are on the payrolls of popular newspapers or public relations companies?
As advertising dollars move from TV and newspaper to the internet, the main stream media is following. How much this will drown out the current boom on citizen journalism is unclear.
9. Internet and Politics
Howad Dean's success and subsequent failure seemed to grow from within communities within the internet. Was online activism a good idea too early? Will the traditionally nonvoting, young, internet crowd actually play any role in the upcoming elections? These are the questions that campaigns are asking .
Campaigns are on MySpace, FaceBook, and YouTube. You can not read digg or reddit without reading about Ron Paul or Kucinich. Of course, strike911 received active buzz throughout the internet without getting support from the general public or receiving any real main stream press.
This campaign cycle should be a great test to see if online voting and protesting will cause any offline results.
10. Social Networks
Online social networks have continued to grow throughout 2007. The large players like MySpace and Facebook are ubiquitous. How they are changing our interactions with our personal worlds are staggering. The influence and entertainment role of TV is being largely supplanted by these social networks. For many, offline social interactions are first initiated and planned online. Small niches of personalities and beliefs can find like-minded partners.
The success of YouTube and Flickr is obviously dependent on their social interactions. Digg and reddit are driven by social interactions. Dating networks are thriving.
As more of our social lives are played out online, more of our personal information is accessible online as well. More of our personal actions and characteristics are targeted by advertisers. More of our actions can be collected and used against us. Will an insurance company be able to find out that you are a member of a tobacco social group or a Huntington's disease facebook group? The ultimate balance between profit and privacy will be difficult.
11. Memes?
Oh wait.. I left out lolcats. I am not sure if that's a trend or a plague, but 2007 is certainly the a year of it. Or maybe it's not a trend, maybe it is a meme. Who knows anymore…
Conclusion:
As I reread my article, my overall feeling is that our experience on the internet is becoming more complex. The name "google" no longer gives most people warm and fuzzy feelings. Digg and reddit are often manipulated more than main stream media. Facebook is looking to trade privacy for profits.
The idea of a "do no evil" company is more likely an untruth than an oxymoron. Previously, we thought it was possible on the internet. No more.
Of course, I would not want to do without Facebook, Digg, Reddit, or Google. We all benefit from the battles between Apple and Microsoft. Companies need to make money to survive. The balance is tough.
The real world continues to invades our idealist internet utopia. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," but I would rather be here than anywhere else.
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