(A Dramatic Entrance Into the New Year)
Supposedly one of my talents is to consider a lot of variables and elements and see how they tie into the long-term big picture (I thank my chess training for that). I thought that may come useful to do one of those “New Year Predictions” kind of thing. I’ll admit, some of this is no-duh common sense, but that’s how a lot of the prediction’s I’ve seen are, so bear with me. Hopefully I have some kind of non-obvious insight:
1. In a recession economy, Green Collar Jobs will be the expanding field. I say this because all the resourceful parties are focusing on environmental sustainability, consumers are demanding green products, company employees are demanding their firm become socially responsible. The Government is working hard to use the Green Economy to boost up the other sectors. Venture Capitalists are putting money into Clean Tech, and Universities are putting in loads of research budget into it. When the earth is dying, green is one of those field that is recession free. Afterall, everyone can fulfill their childhood dreams of saving the world.
2. China will consolidate its economy while India will have a higher market penetration in the offshoring business. I have heard many experts from China that they are concerned that their economy is growing too fast without people being prepared for it in terms of growth infrastructure and cultural. The global recession will actually help them consolidate their economy and also let them shift their focus from exporting to their own 1.3 Billion consumers. India, on the other hand, is fully geared to become a larger service player to the US. Especially after outsourcing philosophies like “The World is Flat” and “The 4-Hour Workweek,” concepts like outsourcing your life will become predominant as people try to do things in cheaper ways.
3. Twitter will become mainstream and introduce a non-intrusive monetization method to test the waters with no difficulty. People who become prominent early on Twitter will get paid for it as consultants. There will be hundreds of Twitter Apps and Tools that are built while Twitter keeps its interface clean, and they might buy a few more of these apps/tools.
4. Virtual Worlds growth will slow down due to the recession, but will still become more and more dominant. Companies and Businesses will look further into how they can take advantage of Web3D as the next wave of Web 2.0. Its cheaper, more interactive, more fun, and more efficient.
5. Personal Branding online will become the best way to secure a stable career. As companies layoff folks, individuals will realize that the only way to make sure that they will have a paycheck is to become the thought leader in their field. If whenever someone thinks of a specific skill set they think of you, you will always be paid for what you know. As a result, more people will blog, vlog, create podcasts, and Twitter.
6. More startups will form as high quality people lose their jobs. Knowing that other companies aren’t really hiring, people will become consultants and start software/internet startups due to the low cost it takes to make one these days. Startups will all START with a revenue model, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will become predominant.
7. Blizzard will launch a (and only one) top-rated game that wipes out a few more billion productive hours.
8. Cheaper but convenient goods like Netbooks and Cloud Computing will sell quite well. People will always need technology, but now they’re looking at the cheaper alternatives. Amazon, along with the Kindle promoted by Oprah, will actually have an extremely good year with used books, cloud computing, and Kindle. Walmart will also do very well with its discounted pricing. Normal book stores will fall.
9. Google will finally have some backlash, Microsoft will suffer but will buy some discounted companies (not Yahoo), Apple will remain strong but profits will slow down due to premium pricing, Yahoo will get bought by a large media company, Digg will not be bought, Facebook will become even more powerful with Facebook Connect but will slowly lose fanatics users, eBay will struggle from sales, and Viralogy will become the market leader in personal blogging.
10. Guy Kawasaki will establish himself as a successful entrepreneur with Alltop (after people laughed at him when he started), and finally earn high respect as a successful VC with SimplyHired among other startups, on top of his proven author and speaker reputation.
