Silicon Search
http://feeds.blogsieve.com/431
Predictions 2009 (John Battelle's Searchblog)
Related:
2008 Predictions
2008 How I Did
2007 Predictions
2007 How I Did
2006 Predictions
2006 How I Did
2005 Predictions
2005 How I Did
2004 Predictions
2004 How I Did
In each of the past five years I've written a predictions post - usually at year's end or by the first of January. This one is late, and I'll admit it's because I found it hard to write. The world is showing itself to be predictable in only one way: bad news begets bad news. I've spent a lot of the past two weeks, where I was ostensibly "not working," thinking about what this year will bring. And I'm not much further from where I started: this is going to be a very difficult year, for a lot of people. But I do have a fair amount of hope. I think times like this force all of us to make honest choices about what we do with our energy, our resources, and our lives. And in the end, that brings long term health to markets.
Last year I wrote my predictions as something of a narrative, and when I looked back to check how I did, I found it somewhat difficult to mark the scorecard. So this year, I'm going to try to be focused, brief, and calculable. Keep me honest, will you?
1. Macro economy: We'll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by Q4 09. In other words, the economy will begin to grow again by the end of the year, but it won't feel like we're out of the woods till next year at the earliest. That's because Q4 08 was so damn bad, Q4 09, rife as it will be with government stimulus, will look much better. But until we have another year or two to really find our footing, it's going to feel like we're treading water.
2. The online media space will be hit hard by the economic downturn in the first half, but by year's end, will have chalked up moderate gains over last year in terms of gross spend. I think it's possible that Q1 09 will be lower than Q1 08, marking the first time that has happened since 01, if I recall correctly. This will cause all sorts of consternation and hand wringing, but in the end, it won't matter. The web is where people are spending their time, the web will be where marketers spend their money.
3. Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever. It will also struggle to find an answer to the question of how it diversifies its revenue in 2009. Search is the ultimate harvester of demand, and Google has become search's Archer Daniels Midland - wherever a seed of demand might pop its head through the web's soil, Google is there to harvest it. The media business is more than a demand fulfillment business, and Google must learn to create demand if it's going to diversify. That means playing the brand game - a game that has long been owned by what we call "traditional media companies." With these companies in a paralyzing economic death spiral (and their new media brethren, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo, in continued strategic sclerosis), Google has a unique opportunity to become a new kind of branded media company. It will fail to do so, mainly for cultural reasons.
4. Despite #3 above, Google stock will soar in by Q3-4 of 2009, mainly because demand will pick up, and when demand picks up, it's like rain on a field of newly sown wheat. This after the stock tanks when the first half of #3, above, becomes apparent.
5. Tied to #3 above, Microsoft will gain at least five points of search share in 2009, perhaps as much as 10. This is a rather radical prediction, I know, but hear me out. I think Redmond is tired of losing in this game, and after trying nearly every trick in the book, Microsoft will start to spend real money to grow share (IE, buying distribution), while at the same time listening to the advice of thoughtful folks who want to help the company improve the product. However, search share is half the game, as we know. The second half is monetization, and Microsoft will continue to struggle here, unless it manages to buy Yahoo's search business. Which it won't, because....
6. Yahoo and AOL will merge.
7. However, in the second half of the year, Microsoft will buy its search monetization from the combined company.
8. Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes. I sense this will happen for a number of reasons (yeah yeah), but I think the main one will be brand related - a brand based on being cooler than the other guy simply does not scale past a certain point. I sense Apple has hit that point.
9. Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media." They will take budget reserved for media spending (IE buying banners and building out branding campaigns) and start to become publishers in their own right. This is not a new tactic (many marketers, in particular technology companies, have published magazines, for example, and many consumer brands create or co-create television series), but given the plastic and social nature of online media, many marketers will see these efforts fail, in particular when the efforts are executed in partnership with major media companies. The reason has to do with putting the cart before the horse: in order to truly succeed in conversational media, the company must itself be fluent in that conversation. A partner with tons of traffic, but who is not fluent, will not be the "translator" major brands need.
10. Agencies will increasingly see their role as that of publishers. Publishers will increasingly see their role as that of agencies. Both can win at this, but only by understanding how to truly add value to real communities - not flash crowds driven by one time events. I don't see a conflict here, long term. As opposed to simply being creators of media, media companies have realized (or will soon) that their job is to create platforms for communities to make media. Publishers are agents for communities, agencies are agents for brands. They need each other. It takes both agents to get good media made.
11. Twitter will continue its meteoric rise. This is a very hard prediction to make, because so much depends on the company's ability to execute two crucial - and exceedingly difficult - new features: The integration of search into the service, and the monetization of that integration. I think Twitter's management team (and its backers) will want to keep the service independent through 2009, both because prices are down but also because I think they want to prove something (this will not keep nearly every major web media company from trying to buy Twitter). The company has a tiger by the tail, and two really defensible assets: a passionate, committed, and growing community, on the one hand, and a valuable, growing, and meaningful database of realtime conversations on the other. Note I did *not* say they have algorithms. That will come. But the key is the community and the conversation that community is having. By the middle of 2009, the integration of Twitter's community and content will become commonplace in well-executed marketing on third party sites.
12. Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. I am not certain what, but it won't have a "status quo" year. It might be a merger with a traditional media company, a major alliance with Google, hiring a head scratcher as CEO, or something else at that level of "WTF!?" As I think about it, it might be as simple as making Facebook Connect truly open, and changing its policies to make it drop dead easy to get data out of the service. Also, Facebook will build a Twitter competitor, but it will never leave beta and will ultimately be abandoned as not worth the time. Instead, Facebook will "friend" Twitter and the two companies will become strong partners.
13. Lucky #13 is reserved for my eternal mobile prediction: 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web. By that I mean what I wrote back in 2007: "Mobile will finally be plugged into the web in a way that makes sense for the average user and a major mobile innovation - the kind that makes us all say - Jeez that was obvious - will occur. At the core of this innovation will be the concept of search"
14. Lastly, I promise, I will have sold my book and will be hard at work on it. And yes, still running FM too. I think I have a way to do both, given I wrote 15K words last year without even knowing it....
Happy New Year, Searchblog readers, and thanks for caring enough to read my musings. Here's to hard work, smart choices, and learning from our mistakes....
/>
/>
Xobni raises $7M to battle Outlook?s email overload (VentureBeat)
Xobni, a plug-in that tries to improve email organization in Microsoft Outlook, has raised $7 million in a second round of venture financing.
Xobni’s most prominent feature is an inbox sidebar that shows profiles of people you’re corresponding with. By making related content (phone numbers, past messages, files exchanged, and more) immediately accessible, Xobni helps you avoid fruitless or time-consuming searches through giant piles of email; Microsoft founder Bill Gates (somewhat hyperbolically) called it “the next generation of social networking.” Xobni also makes it easier for other web services to interact with Outlook, including Yahoo Mail, LinkedIn, and Facebook. I believe VentureBeat Editor Matt Marshall is the only Outlook user on our team, but he praised Xobni for improving his email efficiency.
The San Francisco startup faces plenty of new competition. For example, I’ve been impressed with Postbox, another startup that wants to tackle email overload. A German Outlook plug-in called Lookeen even brags about being a better search tool than Xobni. But that alone should tell you that Xobni is making a big splash — it’s been downloaded 1.5 million times. One of the company’s goals for 2009 is moving into bigger, “enterprise”- level companies. The fact that Cisco joined the new round is certainly a vote of confidence in this direction.
Xobni, which was incubated by Y Combinator, previously raised a $4.26 million first round. Prior investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures and Atomico participated in this round too.
Search Obama?s donors thanks to spreadsheet startup Blist (VentureBeat)
Change.gov, the website where President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team can interact with constituents, just unveiled a neat tool using startup technology — through Blist, the simple database for non-experts, the team is sharing its giant list of donors.
The transition team was already publishing the list as a simple HTML table, but using Blist makes the data much more interactive. You can sort the data just as you would on a spreadsheet — searching, for example, for the biggest donor, or for donors who work for Facebook (it turns out there’s just one). The table is embedded on the web page, so you don’t have to download a giant Excel file, and it also allows me to embed the data behind the jump in this post. (By the way, if the list covered donations to the Obama campaign proper, my name would be on it.)
The National Journal’s David Herbert, a fellow Stanford Daily alum, sorted through the numbers and spotted Craigslist founder Craig Newmark among the new donors.
This is a big improvement for Change.gov and is one of the most coolest ways the site is living up to its promise to increase transparency. It’s also a great showcase for Blist’s potential — it’s one thing to say the Seattle startup’s product is a ridiculously easy-to-use database, and another to actually have a compelling demonstration of its usefulness running on a prominent website. In my past life as a local government reporter, I often had to sort through reams of budget and salary information on spreadsheet printouts, so it would be great to see more government agencies sharing data via Blist. It would also be great if Blist was a little faster.
The company raised $6.5 million from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morganthaler Technology Ventures in March.
Obama-Biden-Transition-Project-Donor-ListObama-Biden-Transition-Project-Donor-ListPowered by blist
Roku?s second act: Amazon Video on Demand (VentureBeat)
Roku’s box will now have access to more than 40,000 titles that Amazon offers. Perhaps even more importantly though, it will give Roku owners access to newly released movies for the first time. Netflix Watch Instantly only offers catalog (older) films, but with Amazon, movies will be available the day they’re released on DVD.
I speculated back in July that winning such a deal could be a big win for Roku, and it is.
Of course, you’ll have to pay for these Amazon titles, and I assume that for the newest new releases you’ll still have to buy them rather than rent them. But the prices for Amazon’s service aren’t too bad. Also great is that anything you buy on the Roku box can be accessed on your PC or Mac as well. And just as with Netflix, streaming movies will scale in quality to your bandwidth, according to Gizmodo.
Back in September, Roku announced it was opening its box up to content providers — a smart move given its competition, and one that now will keep the $99 box alive for the foreseeable future. However, it’ll be interesting to see how quickly other competing boxes offer this Amazon functionality, because you know that’s coming.
It will also be interesting to see how Apple, which makes the rival Apple TV, will respond. Could Apple use tomorrow’s keynote address at the Macworld Expo to announce something new for the Apple TV, the blog Webomatica wonders?
Considering the device has neither Netflix support (unless you use the Boxee add-on) nor Amazon support (which it probably won’t be getting, since Amazon’s a direct competitor to iTunes), Apple TV looks weaker than the competition in many regards. Could we see an Apple TV/Netflix deal in 2009? Perhaps, but remember that Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings is on Apple rival Microsoft’s board of directors. Although that hasn’t stopped Netflix from rolling out on other boxes that compete with the Xbox 360’s Netflix streaming capabilities.
And one major question remains: Which will be the first set-top box with native Hulu support?
Roku raised an undisclosed but supposedly substantial third round of funding back in October from Menlo Ventures. This free Amazon update will come in “early 2009,” according to Roku’s site.
Popularity goes DIY for artists with Band Metrics (VentureBeat)
Independent musicians looking to launch their careers online will soon have a brand new tool to measure their popularity in real time: Band Metrics. Its parent company, Atlanta-based Indie Music, raised an undisclosed angel round of funding to continue developing the application, currently in a private beta.
The service — launched in response to the explosion of digital do-it-yourself music recording and publishing tools — crawls the web for semantic data indicating name recognition, music trends and fan interests. This allows artists and groups to adjust their image and strategy as they go to have the best shot at making it big. A TechCrunch50 semi-finalist, Band Metrics has been heralded as Google Analytics tailored to the music industry.
Anyone can register for the beta on the app’s web site. Not much has been released about how its patent-pending technology actually works, or how it displays results in ways that make it so easy for bands to digest and react to. However, graphics on the site suggest geographic and long-term analysis.
Atlanta entrepreneur Allen Graber led the angel investment. The other investors were not disclosed.
$800 million in capital went to music technology in 2008 despite the downturn. Companies like SellaBand, OurStage, Amie Street, and others devoted to getting the word out about fledgling bands, have also taken healthy slices of this pie.
Norwegian Wood? Podcast offers every Beatles song for free (VentureBeat)
A deal between NRK and Norwegian organization TONO, which owns the music rights, allows NRK to publish the podcast “Our Daily Beatles” which is available here for download (it’s an RSS XML file). The podcast chronologically follows each song, with a three-minute tale about the track’s history. According to NRK’s website, the deal gives NRK the rights to publish previously broadcast radio and TV programs that contain less than 70 percent music.
So maybe it’s not the most ideal way to download Beatles tunes on the Internet (the podcast and background stories are entirely in Norwegian), but it’s free. It’s certainly cheaper than the $800 Beatles iPod package from department store Bloomingdales. Apple’s negotiations to get the songs on iTunes stalled when Apple Corps Ltd., the Beatles holding company, and record label EMI, which owns the recording rights to Beatles’ songs, could not come to an agreement late last year.
Well, there’s always the hope that Michael Jackson will leave his share of the Beatles music catalog to former Beatle Paul McCartney. There are several reports that Jackson, who owns much of the catalog’s publishing rights along with Sony, has revised his will so that McCartney will get control over the band’s songbook when the pop idol dies. Jackson may have turned only 50 last year, but he sure looks closer to 64.
If you build it, they will come ? on Google Earth (VentureBeat)
Those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area can watch the construction of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge anytime we want. Unfortunately, most of the time that means sitting in traffic on the current Bay Bridge. But now there’s another option, and it’s not just for us locals: Watch it on Google Earth.
The large construction project is now being rendered in full 3D in the “3D Buildings” layer on Google Earth. It’s the first time a construction project has been featured, according to the Google Lat Long Blog.
Seeing as completion of the bridge isn’t scheduled until 2013, it’s obviously not all built yet, but a transparent placeholder is also displayed in 3D for the remainder of the bridge. This allows you to see what the one giant suspension tower will look like.
From the Google Earth entry:
The signature portion of the new East Span?and the Bay Bridge?will be the world’s largest Self-Anchored Suspension Span, which will also be the first bridge of its kind built with a single tower.
Oddly enough, I was just remarking over the weekend on Twitter how I don’t fully appreciate that I can see the Golden Gate Bridge from my desk, and users on FriendFeed were quick to point out that, thanks to online services like Google Earth, pretty much anyone can see such great views virtually. Now that includes giant construction sites as well.
.
I will not be visiting ESPN.com ever again (VentureBeat)
ESPN launched its new site design today and all I can say is “wow.” And it’s not a good “wow,” it’s a horrified “wow.” I can’t separate those advertisements from the content, and so I’ll never visit this site again.
It’s sad, because ESPN does have great content when it comes to sports. In fact, I don’t think it’s any stretch to say that it has the best content out there. But with this redesign it’s crossed a line that I expect other sites may try to cross as advertising revenues dip in the weak economy.
First of all, when you load up espn.com, you’re greeted with a huge overlay that includes not just a giant static ad, but also a video that auto-plays! It was annoying enough when ESPN had a little video in the corner that played when you loaded the site previously, but at least with that you could see other content too. Now you’re forced to sit through this overlay or click out of it. It doesn’t run every time you visit the site, but more than enough to make it so I won’t go back.
Secondly, the site itself is still just a giant ad disguised as a sports site. I’m looking at the site right now and I can’t tell if I’m at a site about sports or the website about the Ford F-150. I hope I don’t accidentally click anywhere because I must have a 50 percent chance of hitting one of these ads.
I would just visit ESPN through my RSS feed reader and avoid all this nonsense, but ESPN has chosen to go with truncated feeds — lame. And so I’ll take myself and my readership to CNNSI (which is almost as bad) and Yahoo Sports for my sporting news.
The worst part of this is that I’m actually still a subscriber to ESPN Insider. It’s mostly because I keep forgetting to cancel my $5-a-month subscription, but this just reminded me. It also gives me an idea: What if ESPN Insider’s got to view the site with absolutely no ads? I would gladly pay something like $5-a-month for that.
What do you say ESPN? It’s either that or lose me forever.
Update: For those who think ESPN really needs to cram as many ads as possible onto its web site, consider this: The sports cable channel makes something like $4.3 billion a year just in subscriber revenue thanks to deals with cable and satellite operators, the New York Times found out in November. (Thanks Michael.)
