alex de carvalho

Brian at Webpl.us, where I co-author, tagged me for some predictions for 2007. So here goes my list, which is a combination prediction and wish list.

The first five are about social networks (SN), in no particular order:

1. Prediction: Social Networking gains widespread adoption and recognition. Remember 10 or 11 years ago when most people didn’t have an email address? And when most didn’t have a mobile phone? Well, despite the success of MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut, Flickr and other SNs, most people still don’t have their profile up on the web. By the end of this year it will become the norm to say: "find me on [insert SN name here]", just like it became the norm to have a cellphone and to have one or several e-mail addresses. And dating services will see a drop off in users as people realize they can meet their mate just as well on a social network.

2. Wish: Social Networks add micropresence lifestreams. Ever notice how static SNs are? People spend a lot of effort in creating their profile and then let it just sit there for lengths of time with no updates. Of course, when you change jobs you’ll update LinkedIn or when you break up with your partner you’ll go back to spruce up your MySpace profile … but these events are (relatively) infrequent. Of course, some SNs like MySpace have a blogging tool, and that’s fine. But to make things even more dynamic and lively, expect SNs to integrate a Twitter- or Jaiku-like lifestream which can be immediately and easily updated by IM, by mobile phone, by email or any other simple way. Facebook is doing something similar already by allowing you to display your other RSS feeds in your profile, like your Flickr stream. After all, Social Networking is all about communication, be it synchronous (IM) or asynchronous (profile, comments, lifestreams …). And lifestreams give people an instant summary of what’s going on in your life, giving them more opportunities and reasons to connect with you.

3. Wish: Social Networks add geolocation. Flickr did it (and it rocks!). Plazes is it. Your blog may have it. Expect to see it on more SNs as well. What is it? location. As the Where 2.0 conference says: "Location is going everywhere." It makes sense to tag your content (photos, video) with location … and soon you’ll be publishing your own whereabouts, while retaining control over the level of location you want others to see. Why is this a nice to have? So your social network in other cities knows when you’re in town. And so you know when someone from your social network is in town. And so you can communicate this information without having to shoot off emails to announce your travel plans.

4. Prediction: Social Networking does not goes mobile [yet]. Some SNs, including Xing.com and aSmallWorld.net, offer some mobile functionalities. But we’re still waiting for a MoSoSo (mobile social networking) category leader. Who will get it right? It won’t happen this year, yet. Anywhere. When municipal wi-fi, WiMax and/or services like Fon go widespread, MoSoSos will gain traction. Anyway, people first need to get comfortable with online social networks (see prediction 1) before going mobile.

5. Prediction: Facebook gets acquired. For mucho dinero. My guesstimate is Yahoo! will make a better offer than last time, perhaps for $1.3B (YouTube is worth more), sometime in the second quarter. Yahoo! will do something to shore up its stock price and may make a big move in social networking, which could be exciting. See more acquisition bait here.

6. Design online will explode. My friend Carlos at Scrapblog says it best: "In 2007, user-generated content will focus on “design online” rather than just sharing photos and videos online." I’ll blog more on this later.

7. Wish: SecondLife grows up:

- Linden Labs will setup an international currency exchange and accept other currency, not just US dollars. Currently, local entrepreneurs are picking up the slack by buying and selling Linden Dollars.

- Linden Labs will outsource and offshore. But it needs to figure out what its core processes are first and then outsource and offshore the rest. Anyway, outsourcing and offshoring would enhance SecondLife by making it more international, through the influence of foreign developers. As a friend of mine says, "it would be better to have an international workforce because they’ll [Linden Labs] get the  cultural differences that would affect their design decisions". Currently, SL has a very American-centric view of things and for instance there’s no support for Asian character sets or bi-directional text.

- Linden Labs will add new grids to SecondLife. Something must be done to reduce the lag, and multiple grids should be considered.There’s already a separate Teen grid, which is a good idea anyway for other reasons. It probably doesn’t make sense to separate people into grids by geography (ie., Europe and US) since the load may already be balanced by different time zones anyway, but additional grids should be added to relieve the strain on the world. (Another grid in SL could be like another continent in RL, where it would take you time to travel to and yet be interconnected in currency and communication.)

- More companies and universities will set up inworld, aided by new interactive agencies, including Crayon and The Electric Sheep Company. These new agencies become acquisition targets for existing advertising and interactive agencies.

8. Wish: User-generated video advertising. There’s user-generated video content (YouTube). And there’s GiggedUp, where employers and candidates post videos alongside job descriptions and resumes. So there should be user-generated videos for advertising the stuff you want to sell: your bike, your car, your electronics … Even if it’s a 10 second video, it’ll give people more confidence in items on sale than a photograph. Somebody will create this and eBay will buy it, all within the year. What do you think, Gil?

9. Prediction: Blogging will have its biggest year yet in terms of growth in active bloggers, number of posts and advertising dollars. Why? The run-up to US and French presidential elections and other political issues will provide lots of stuff to talk about.

10. Wish: Miami’s tech scene grows up. The WeMedia Miami conference in February, BarCamp SoBe and the Webpl.us and RefreshMiami groups help organize the Miami tech scene and get the ball rolling for more events and conferences and eventually startups. And the UM School of Communication is developing new web tech and comm courses that will help build a local talent pool.

Photo credit eRmood

Technorati Tags: mypredictions2007, predictions, 2007, tech, web2.0

powered by performancing firefox