Social Machinery

Predicting the future is always a rather challenging task. There is one thing about predicting the future….it is so hard to predict.

 Mike Elgan makes a great top ten list with the worst predictions by technology pundits for this 2009. Most of them where too vague considering the existing trends happening at the end of this year.

Check the top ten list below

10. “ Twitter will get a business model “ – Josh Catone.

Twitter hasn’t been able to monetize their growing audience during this year besides raising venture capital. Probably one of the most wrong predictions for 2009 and still with no clear path from Twitter’s owners.

9. “Apple will announce a successor to Steve Jobs” – Louis Gray

Steve Jobs is still alive and kicking. Until now, there is no strong successor within Apple that can take Jobs leadership and unconventional style. Most of the pundits forecasted tough times for Apple without Jobs fully involved. But the company probed everyone that they have much more solid foundations than Steve Jobs only. Apple is not a “one man show”.

8. “iTunes will gain social networking features” – Richard MacManus.

Apple doesn’t seem to be interested on connecting their walled garden to Facebook. Their strategy is to keep Apple fans in a “controlled” ecosystem. Richard MacManus also made other wrong predictions about Facebook would embrace OpenSocial and that Yahoo would sell to a big media company.

7. “Facebook Connect will become the de facto way to login to web sites” – Sarah Perez. Nope.

Still on my wish-list for making Social networking life easier, but not even close to current trends. Few sites are using Facebook Connect. Still the so-called “openness” is not fully embrace by social networking sites and from my perspective it will remain fragmented for a while. Every SNS knows that their sustainability depends on controlling the platform and their key´access points.

 6. “Microsoft will resurrect WebTV after buying Netflix” – Lidija Davis.

There is no sign that this will happen in the near term. Nexflix remains un-bought and WebTV dead.

5. “Twitter will be acquired” – Sean Ammirati.

Probably this rumor has been there for the last two years, but until now nobody has been really serious on acquiring the microblogging site. During the past year we have seen astronomical valuations for Twitter, Stories about Microsoft interest on the platform and the recent Google’s discussions with Twitter. But until now,  no acquisition so far.

4. “Apple TV will evolve into an actual TV” – Jason Schwarz.

The only good thing about this prediction was that Schwarz correctly pointed out that “the current Apple TV box has not worked.”. Unfortunately his solution didn’t materialized.

3. “Apple TV will be discontinued” - Ed Kohler.

Probably what a large amount of pundits predicted for Apple TV future, but until now Apple TV is still there.

2. “Microsoft will try to buy RIM” – Tim Bajarin.

Not even close to what is currently happening. Actually RIM is having an excellent momentum thanks to their increasing market share in the smartphone segment and their fast pacing growing rate in South East Asian countries like Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia. In the other hand Microsoft is still scratching their heads trying to conquer the mobile market.

1. “The Android platform will be outselling the iPhone by July” – Matthaus Krzykowski.

Even do we can consider Android already a successful platform, they are not even close to Iphone phenomenon. Apple sold more than 2.6 Million Iphones during 2009, while Android closed the year with 380.000 devices. Also, if you compared their application store the difference is even wider: Apple reached 100.000 apps, while Android hit 16.000 applications listed on Android Marketplace.

Source: Mike Elgan