Looking Back on 2007
Here’s what we said was going to happen in 2007 one year ago, compared to what really happened…
Before we dive into next year’s predictions, let’s look at how our previous trend predictions worked out:
Looking Back: 2007, Prediction and Reality
1. Apple keeps its iPod monopoly and increases its OS market share from 5% to 5.1%
All right, so that’s really two predictions in one. The first (Apple keeping its iPod monopoly), was 100% true, but the second was only 5% true. Truth is, Apple had one of its best years. Depending on what market share you’re looking at, the Cupertino-based company gained significant ground. The OS market share rose to 6.81 percent.
2. Google scores against both Microsoft and Yahoo due to its massive marketing data advantage
200% true. There’s nothing more to say, really. To see Microsoft through Google’s goggles click here
3. Blogs bloom, and prepare for the 2008 election
100% true—but that was an easy one.
4. Social networks become a place where members make money
50% true. We’re getting there.
5. Newspapers open up
100% true. See: The New York Times. The Wall Street Journal will follow soon (a first step has already been taken).
6. Big ad investments start streaming in
80% true. It’ll take another 6 months. The numbers are clear though.
Source: IAB/PWC
7. New, Internet-focused ad agencies open up
0% true. As far as we can tell, nothing happened. We admit we didn’t understand the mechanics of online advertisement well enough back then. It’ll take another year. Yet, from what we hear from our old world friends in advertisement and brand consulting in Japan, Europe and the States, the big classic communication agencies start to shape up for interactive media. Too late for Online only ad agencies? No, online ad agencies are still a great business case, but it gets tougher to build up a brand, when the big guys stand in your way (no matter whether they know what they’re doing or whether they just say so.
8. Viruses and spam become an even bigger hassle
100% true. In the mean time 90% of all traffic is unsolicited email. All our accounts are under constant bombardment. We are thinking about switching to Gmail. You will have to read the following 2008 predictions to understand why we hesitate.
9. Digital identity initiates a major change that makes the web more reliable, user and investor-friendly
200% true. we were positive that people would become more relaxed about their real identity online. What we didn’t see was Facebook succeeding so strongly in that role. iA received an RFP for Facebook’s redesign in November 2006; but our proposal was rejected, so we had to use our SNS interface design research for another (German) platform called FACTS. And, of course, FACTS is way cleaner, cooler easier to use, or, at least, easier to read… (Yes, we are still biting our nails over not getting that job, hopefully, this year iA will stop whining).
Nevertheless, the event of the year was when people began to use their real names online without even noticing. The platform that introduced real online identities was Facebook—not digital ID or anything else. They don’t call it identity, they call it social graph.
UPDATE: Here we go—Nine days into 2008 Google and facebook joined forces on dataportability.org to form the center of online identity.
10. All in all, 2007 is the Internet’s summer of love, and a preparation for the big infolution in 2008
And a summer of love it was. The infolution was not a prediction for 2007, but for 2008. We’ll post the predictions for 2008 tomorrow.
What iA’s Prophet didn’t foresee
Koukee in Japan and Janiv in Switzerland. Two new fantastic nephews. This is Janiv with uncle Oliver at the vitra design Museum:
Great to see a review of last year’s predictions.
I’m interested to hear your vision of internet focused ad-agencies. Certainly seems to be an interesting niche waiting to be exploited.
Also - interested in what measures and in what markets are you using to define the iPod as a monopoly.
Thanks Andrew. iPod monopoly: There are a lot of interesting articles on the subject out there: This one is particularly compelling.
Of course, legally, a monopoly is not necessarily a good thing to have.
I love point 9. I always hated nicknames and huge gaps between on- and offline activities. Now the two finally start merging nicely together, and indeed mostly without people explicitly noticing.
This really helps to make for instance comments more useful (people keep in mind that what they say on the web may backfire in the offline world) and websites more transparant (away with cool avatars, bring on the real faces!) and thus trustworthy.
Great insights on the market. Will chew a bit more on your thoughts.
P.Wolfe AINEO Networks
Don’t forgot to include in the map more about video on internet started with GoogleVideo/YouTube (which was included), Joost, me.tv and all other main video portals. I very appreciate your MAP, predictions and all other things you do. Great work, thank you!
UPDATE: Turns out the Identiy-Prediction was spot on:
“Google will be represented by Brad Fitzpatrick, the inventor of LiveJournal and one of the primary minds behind OpenID, the concept of the Social Graph and the Google-led OpenSocial platform. Facebook will be represented by Benjamin Ling, who today runs the Facebook platform. Ling defected from Google three months ago, where he ran Google Checkout, to join Facebook. Also joining the workgroup is Joseph Smarr of Plaxo, probably the catalyst for all of this after his company scraped Robert Scoble’s Facebook account and set off a huge debate about Data Portability and privacy.” (Readwriteweb)
Hey Oliver
Good stuff. I look forward to seeing this years picks.
One that I like: “The Future of the Web is Distributed”
http://t-l.cc/591
I think this one is really interesting to think about how it impacts our experience and consumption of the web.
Thanks for sharing