Cashing in My Predictions for 2011

In my various talks and appearances throughout the year people always ask me about new technologies, shifts or trends to look out for in the future. So, last year I decided to make it official. On New Year’s Eve I tweeted 7 predictions for 2011. Here, I’ll break them down, see how many came true and give me self an over all percentage-based score.

1) MySpace tanks, get’s sold

MySpace launched in 2003 and was purchased for $580 million by News Corp in 2005 where it was propelled to it’s peak in June of 2006 when it was the most visited website in the world. However, it’s been down hill since. Last year, MySpace went through several redesigns and was holding on for dear-life. News Corp decided to cut their loses and sell it for just $35 Million to Specific Media, LLC and Justin Timberlake (yes, THAT Justin Timberlake).

As of this writing, MySpace is still the 142nd most trafficked website in the world but faces an uphill battle.

2) Google’s social media efforts tank

In 2011 Google announced they would be doing away with their 2 biggest social media projects: Google Wave and Google Buzz. *However, they also launched Google+. So I had to give myself a KINDA for this one.

3) Facebook DOES NOT go public (again)

Despite countless rumors and tons of predictions by other that Facebook WILL go public, I stood by my guns and said NO. I was right. And I will comfortably make that prediction again for 2012 (even though SOME sources are now predicting a 2013 IPO).

While Facebook has accepted several rounds of investment capital in 2011, it was all private and even though the ticket prices were in the hundreds-of-millions they still only amounted to fractions-of-a-percent in total ownership. Zuck is still the majority shareholder of Facebook at 24% and I predict that he’ll keep it that way as long as he can.

Mark Zuckerberg is an idealist. His Majority ownership has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the final say and power to execute his vision.

Today, Facebook is the 3rd largest web company in the world and is easily one of the most powerful names in communications. President Obama isn’t the leader of the free world – Mark Zuckerberg is.

4) LinkedIn Goes Public

All indicators were GO for this prediction! LinkedIn posted SEC filings in January – just after I published my prediction – first shares were traded in May. At some point – I was mistaken as an initial LinkedIn share holder. I’m sorry to say, this was an error and I’m not rich.

Today LinkedIn has over 135 Million users and employes almost 1,800 people.

5) Groupon, Skype & Pandora go Public too!

2 out of 3 ain’t bad, right? I actually felt so confident about the trio that I made a lump prediction.

Groupon just went public back in November (quite a bit later than I expected, actually) and at the time of this writing is trading in the $20 range.

Pandora went public over the summer with an estimated valuation of $3 Billion.

*While Skype, allegedly has been through more than 1 round of talks with the SEC there’s still no official word. I think it can happen in 2012 – probably one of the less glamours IPOs – in the $100 Million range. Either way, eBay should be kicking themselves for selling their majority stake in Skype too soon. (Hell, eBay will have enough problems once Amazon is done with them… but that’s a prediction for 2012.)

6) E-Mail Marketing becomes hot again

There was a lot of buzz suggesting ‘social media is the new email marketing’ – nevertheless, email did make a strong come back in 2011. 65% of companies marketing online indicated they increased spending on email in 2011.

I’ve said it before… email and social marketing are not competing medias, they are complementary and different.

Email marketing best practices have evolved over the last year but still beat out many other digital marketing mediums. Why? Email STILL works, it STILL converts and it’s not going anywhere this year either.

7) RIM dumps BlackBerry OS 6 in favor of unix-based OS

While I was right that BlackBerry OS 6 was the most short-lived BlackBerry OS ever, BlackBerry OS 7 isn’t the QNX based operating system RIM fans may have been hoping for. BlackBerry OS 7 IS a radically different and infinitely superior OS when compared to version 6 though.

Still, I do get to give myself a big fat KINDA because BlackBerry’s tablet – the PlayBook – DOES have the QNX-based operating system we were vying for on smartphones.

I would love to be able to refer to this software as something other than “the QNX-based OS” – in another BIG marketing & branding win for RIM – the OS STILL DOES NOT HAVE A NAME. (In case you didn’t pick up on it… that was a BlackBerry fan self-burn.)

In other BlackBerry news for 2011…

RIM has announced that they WILL be using the QNX-based OS on smartphones in the near future. However, everyone missed that announcement because the media was too busy talking about BlackBerry’s 3-day outage. (Additional BlackBerry fan self-burn.)

Sorry, RIM. You know I love you… but I couldn’t resist.