2005 Prognostications: Scorecard

Next week I’ll try to make my 2006 Prognostications, but I thought it might be more fun – and instructive – to grade how I did last year.

Here are the points I made, my comments on same, with a mainly right/coin toss/mainly wrong score:

Theme of the year: Security – Hmm. I don’t know. This was certainly a big part of this year’s tech picture, but I don’t know if it was THE theme of 2005. MS did spend a bunch to get an antivirus product rolling as I predicted, and the AOL commercials rolling over the holidays certainly point to the ISPs really using this as a value-added (almost required) service. I think I was more right than wrong on this one, but I still don’t have a true sense of what the year’s overriding theme was. I certainly was not wrong, but the story did not dominate tech news as I expected. I’ll call it a coin toss, but I was really more right than wrong, but not to the degree to win a “right” here. I think the security issues of 2004 made the 2005 issues more of the same-old-same-old, to a great degree. (Update 12/30/2005: Record year for security woes. I guess we are just getting used to it…).

Google will have another remarkable year – Yep, I totally nailed this one. Google’s stock price basically doubled over the year (~192/share last year at this time; currently ~430), and – if security was not the tech theme of last year, Google everywhere was. I expected two big splashes from Google this year; there were the following: 1) Google Maps – Goodbye Mapquest, hello Google/AJAX; 2) Google Wins Stake in AOL – While interesting – a mix of the old and new Web – the old argument of “gaining eyeballs” has not gone away; 3) Google Analytics – The full potential of this offering is not yet clear, but it’s a free, simple alternative to many expensive, complex systems. I could go on for some time here (Google offers free WiFi in San Francisco; Google and Sun Shake Hands; Google Earth and so on…) Google Google everywhere…

Google will do something remarkable with Blogger – I was wrong. While there have been incremental improvements in Blogger, such as auto-save and permalinks, nothing earth-shattering. Which still surprises me. I still expect something remarkable to come out of this (Pyra) purchase.

Six Apart will struggle – Given the recent outages of Typepad/Live Journal (here and here), I think I gots this right. And I don’t know the reasons for the partnership, but I firmly believe one goal behind Yahoo/Six Apart partnership was Six Apart’s desire to tap Yahoo’s expertise with networking/scalability and so on. That’s a good thing for all involved.

Blogging becomes mainstream – This has happened so suddenly and so persuavively over major non-blog properties (think Wired and MSNBC), and the sale of blogging properties (see Industry Consolidation, below) that – at this point of the year – it’s hard to imagine news anchors or tech companies without blogs of some sort. I nailed this one, as well.

Industry consolidation a-go-go – Google Buys Stake in AOL, Oracle Swallow Siebel, Yahoo Partners with Six Apart, Yahoo buys Flickr, Yahoo De.licio.us, Dave Winer sells weblogs.com to Verisign. I could go on and on…

Demise/decline of Apple and or Sun – I’m totally wrong on this one on two fronts: 1) Sun keeps trying to be relevant (here and here, for example); 2) Apple had a kick-ass year. For a company (Apple) that is still way smaller than – for example – Microsoft – it still garners more (non-litigation) headlines than MS, simply because of innovation and the “cool” factor. One impressive statistic: On Google’s 2005 Zeitgeist (a yearly affair and more…), four of the top 10 searches at Froogle (No.’s 1, 4, 8 & 10) for 2005 were for iPods. Wow.

A serious Linux virus/Trojan will surface – Totally wrong. Why? Is Linux/Unix so secure that it’s less susceptible to Trojans? (I think yes); or is it that most virus writers still write for the best bang for the buck? (I think yes); or do the virus writers like to “stick it to the Man” (MS) and try not to hurt *nix (Yes, to a degree, but – if you’re writing viruses etc [for fun or profit], the platform doesn’t matter).

This will be the year of broadband – Yep. This was the year that began with the beginnings of everyone online all the time; at the end of this year, we are at the point not of “if” everyone will be able to be on all the time, but “when” this will happen. Power over power lines, city WiFi proposals, all major telecoms with DSL plays and so on. In 2005 we turned the corner.

Outsourcing – I wrote “Will keep increasing for manufacturing/development (why not?), but will decrease/not increase appreciably for customer service.” I still see this a true. Arguments?

Upstart Start-Up – I expected another Google or Netscape to come along and just change our perceptions about how the web works/could work. I don’t really see evidence of such this year; I was wrong.

RIAA & MPAA will again duck and miss getting hit with the clue stick – Oh, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Especially if you extend the RIAA/MPAA to incorporate media companies trying to incorporate DRM (which is where the RIAA/MPAA miss the boat): Witness the clusterfuck that was Sony and its DRM. Bruce Schneier (previous link) covers most of the insanity, and gives a very good overview of just how out of touch so many major industries are with technology. Frightening and amusing.

My score?

So only 66% correct.

No tech Nostradamus.

Let’s see how I do next year…

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