Neomeme

Predictably, everyone is the blogosphere is making predictions for 2007. I was going to jump on the bandwagon, but unfortunately I got caught up in things and, before I knew it, it’s 2007.Only losers make predictions for 2007 when it’s already 2007, so I figured I’d make the best of things and mock other people’s predictions instead, in a list even Jeff Jarvis might approve of(but probably not). Without further ado, here they are- the top best(and worst) predictions for 2006, made in late 2005.

The good:

• Wordpress darling Robert Scoble snuck in a prediction in a post about wine. He correctly saw further consolidation in a Web 2.0 that, with a flurry of start-ups, was looking increasingly like 1999’s Web 1.0.
• The CEO of Feedburner predicts the growth of and adoption of RSS. 2006 Really was the year RSS took off.
• Mark Kingdon predicted “Video Explodes Online”. With Time Magazine explicitly naming Youtube Invention of the Year and implicitly naming it Person of the Year(the Youtube player is on the cover), 2006 was without a doubt the year video took off.
• Jeff Ventura sees the continued dominance of the Google and Apple juggernauts. 2006 has been a year of incredible success and growth for both companies.

The bad:

• kuru5hin, as many others did, predicts PS3 launching at $399. We can only dream.
• BusinessWeek says that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo will run out of money to buy Web 2.0 startups. Looking at Google’s record of acquisitions- almost one a month- they’re just getting started.
• USA Today says the popularity of Steve Jobs will decrease, and that “society, as if striving for equilibrium, will then knock Jobs as far down as we boosted him up”. Jobs, incredibly charismatic as always and still the face of Apple, had millions hanging on his every word, with his keynotes still drawing millions of viewers. Even the recent stock scandal can’t touch him.

The ugly:

• Jason Calacanis. The Netscape mastermind and part-time Kevin Rose nemesis drops such bombshells as “Digg will be bought by Cnet” and “CNET will be bought by Yahoo or Fox Interactive/Newscorp.” Calacanis also predicts the death of Web 2.0 if oil prices rise significantly in 2006. Although the first half of 2006 saw tremendous growth in the price of oil, Web 2.0 kept pluggin’ along. In fact, despite record high oil prices in June 2006, Calcanis ignored his own prediction and oversaw the launch of Netscape.com, a very Web 2.0 site. Those at Digg and Cnet did not have to welcome their Newscorporate overlords, and the housing bubble is still hanging in there. To be fair, his prediction about Google stock ending the year as it begun it is spot-on, though that’s not exactly a difficult prediction to make.

More bloggers should look back and analyze the predictions they made a year ago, as Greg Linden did. Predictions are like first dates: fun to make, but a lot more fun to look back on later, laughing at yourself as you were a year ago. Also, tech predictions tend to have less saliva.