Battelle’s 2007 Predictions

John Battelle offers his predictions for 2007. He is often pretty acurate so they’re worth reading. OK – head over there and I’ll wait….
There, interesting eh?
I think he’s brave to name names but I agree that we will see a major merger in the search giants in 2007, a major drop in Google stock, loads of experimental ads in streaming media, several privacy screw-ups, excellent mobile growth in the US, significant web growth in the international sphere, an increasing plethora of social tools and sites before a grand concatenation before the end of the decade, and more mergers and sales in the aggregator, content sapce. News organizations will continue to suffer.
I also foresee a huge renaissance in the library virtual presences out there moving beyong plain blogs, websites and OPACs and into a more dynamic presence building on their trusted, mediated and safe role in their communities.
Many folks are talking about the Web 2.0 bubble. Folks should remember the original Internet Bubble of the 90’s. I remember hearing one librarian say that the bubble meant that it was all a fad. I did resist laughing out loud. I just remembered to blog this point since some folks are confusing a stock market bubble bursting as the end of a trend. Many people invested their money in the hopes of betting on the right companies in the Internet trend and raking in. Some did well and some bubbles burst and most risk takers lost money. It’s an investors’ bubble. The actual underlying trends don’t go away. We still have an Internet and a Web and they’re stronger than ever. The Web 2.0 bubble is potentially the same. Investors are betting on who will win in the next generation of web properties. The underlying trends — social networking, streaming media, interactive content, gaming, etc. – aren’t going away. Libraries must continue to make their best, run their pilots and learn from what’s happening.
There’s a running commentary on the Slow Library Movement. There are some good ideas here. I just wish the name didn’t imply that slowness was an option. You can only go the appropriate speed of change, and some will go faster – just hope it’s not the competition.
Battelle’s 2004, 2005 and 2006 predictions are here, AND he is brave enough to transparently test himself every year about his own accuracy!
Stephen