Predictions for 2009

Hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo stuff...

This is an edited report from John Battelle who has made some very accurate predictions in the past. I think a lot of this stuff is prity accurate and will definitlyy effect a lot iof us in the marketing world.

1. Macro economy: We'll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by the end of 2009. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 the end 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. Yahoo and AOL will merge.
   
   
6. Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes. I sense this will happen for a number of reasons, 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.
   
   
7. Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media." They will take budget reserved for media spending 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.
   
   
8. 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. 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.
   
   
9. Twitter will continue its meteoric rise. 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. 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. 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.
   
   
10. Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. 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!?" Facebook will "friend" Twitter and the two companies will become strong partners.
    
    
11. 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web. 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