Continuing my series of predictions for 2005 (even though we’re now in February), here’s 12, 13 and 14 – 3 for the price on 1, as they’re quite short.
Incidentally, someone made a derogatory comment about an earlier prediction saying words to the effect that “you really went out on a limb with that one”. I deleted it as the contact details led back to a dodgy gambling site, which I took to be a rather pathetic attempt at comment spam.
[Comment spam is where dubious sites leave comments on blogs in order to try to trick Google into increasing their ranking.]
Having said that, if anyone has other (legitimate) comments, derogatory or otherwise, please feel free to leave a comment. Or better yet, if you have a prediction, please share it with the rest of us.
As far as “going out on a limb” is concerned, some go further down the branch than others 🙂
Some go against received industry thinking – and certainly the thinking at mobile operators (such as MMS and LBS) -some go with the flow and some are included for the sake of comprehensiveness.
Anyway, if you think you can do better (or as well!) feel free to jump in – the conversation is lovely!
Anyway, here are the predictions:
12. MP3 and Mobile Converge
Say no more. Already happening and watch for more of the same.
Where does this leave Apple and its iPod though?
13. DRM
The lesson about Digital Rights Management seems to be that the cleverer the encryption gets, the cleverer the crackers get. Thus DRM controlling songs and films, for instance, seems to me to be doomed.
But it won’t stop them trying and it’ll be high on 2005’s agenda.
Though it might be a better use of the content owners’ considerable energy and talent to think how they can work with the new trends of their business model, rather than trying to stuff the fully grown adult lion back into the bag it doesn’t want to go into, with their bare hands.
14. Voice is the Killer App for 3G
As 3 have found in the UK, the disappointing killer app seems to be cheap voice calls.
This was also VC, Jason Purcell’s thinking when I interviewed him last week.
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