OpsanBlog Internet Predictions for 2009

So much to consider!

This list is mostly about online advertising and social sites / media:

• Online advertising will see a bottoming in cost-per-pageview pricing. This is dragged down by and will hit social networks and "social portals" the hardest. However, it was their "just look at the number of eyeballs we reach" attitude that drove prices up in the first place.
• Companies placing online advertising buys who have realized that people come to social sites to socialize and not necessarily to buy things will put even more pressure on online advertising pricing.
• Users of social sites will reduce the number of social sites they try to maintain, simply placing links on tertiary sites to their chosen sites. Social sites will start to grep for these links and send lots of email to the offenders.
• Users of social sites will seek social network aggregators to place content on multiple sites, with the above desire of maintaining fewer social networks. As many social sites want to avoid losing direct access to their sites (to which they can serve ads), aggregation will be slow going. Eventually, the market will win out and aggregation will open, but we may not see this until mid-2010.
• Social sites will share just enough access to your data with various aggregation services to be seen as helpful, but not enough to truly release their users to a single- (or even, multiple-) source aggregator. Social sites will continue try to become the aggregator of their customer data, as this is happening with Facebook already (see "Is Social Portability Getting Closer? Is this a good thing?"). These companies will reposition themselves as "Social Portals".
• User privacy will rise to the fore (again). Either through some massive and widely-publicized breach, or some horrifying event happening to "someone on the web", people will become more cautious about the bits they share online. This includes articles containing their children’s names and photos, their location, the kinds of cars they drive and problems at work / school. Social sites will respond with more protections by emphasizing "friending" and group creation, before exposing more data.
• The need for a common identity platform will also rise to the fore. Too many sites, too many passwords.
• The combination of users wanting fewer social sites to maintain and privacy risks (resulting in ‘friending’) will curtail social openness, as to view a friend on a network, you must also belong to the same network. This will likely inhibit critical mass of active users on an individual’s tertiary network .. if you have to be a member of a site to enjoy another’s content, you will soon weary of getting invites from them, or you will simply stub a site (i.e., minimal maintenance) on their social network. This will eventually result in many individuals stubbing sites on lot of social networks.
• The number of Web .Next companies providing behind-the-firewall social functions will agree to agree, and then merge, or find themselves shut. Survivors in this space will include companies who provide SharePoint add-ins / services.
• Green tech will be big (duh). It will take many forms, not all of the forms being good for the environment (double-duh). Low-hanging fruit, that one.
• Underlying motivation for investors and VCs will change. Instead of "build", "gain share" and "get bought" with little (or no) business planning, VCs will drive these companies to "build", "grow organically", "sell (a lot of) something" and then exit via acquisition or public offering. We won’t see the latter part of this until the mid-10s, however.

I grabbed a quick collection from the web after writing the above (links to defunct sites removed):

• Social Computing Magazine: "Top Internet Predictions for 2009".
• MergeWeb: "5 Quick Web Predictions/Trends for 2009".
• VatorNews: "Consumer Internet predictions for 2009".
• LightSpeed Venture Partners: "Consumer Internet Predictions for 2009".
• eMarketer: "eMarketer’s Predictions for 2009".
• W3C: "A Few Predictions for 2009".

It’s only the 27th .. you’ll see lots more of these in the ‘sphere in the next few days.

Still Frightful .. but Beautifully Flocked

In front of my house, looking east from earlier today.

Note the beautifully flocked forest in the distance .. that glorious lumber is going to break free in tonight’s rain and knock out our power. Lake Forest Dark, perhaps?

This is an eight-shot stitch using Windows Live Photo Gallery.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

Not so you’d think .. the view from my front door, December 2008.

This is an eleven-shot stitch using Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Sustained Innovation: Corporate Culture is da Bomb

Even in this economy, Microsoft is not slowing our internal innovation efforts. One needs only to listen to Rick Rashid of Microsoft Research during his PDC08 keynote to confirm this. Microsoft Research remains well-funded, our customer and partner outreach programs work diligently to deploy our technologies in interesting and monetizable situations and we’re on top of most of the spaces "outside the box".

Microsoft recognizes innovation is an integral component of our growth and success. In fact, innovation is critical to the growth, success and wealth of all companies and of entire countries.

Evaluating innovation? That’s another matter. On one level, you can stand back and say "cool" or "wow" (check out "It’s About the Business, You – The “Wow” Factor (Part 1)" and "It’s About the Business, You – The “Wow” Factor (Part 2)" from a few years back). The key thought in those writings: different audiences have different reasons for saying "wow".

Is a "wow factor" enough, though? In a challenging economic environment, wouldn’t you want to consider a profitability (top-line expansion or bottom-line reduction) component as a means to prioritize innovation paths? Probably. But is it worth the risk of stifling innovation?

As important as evaluating innovation is evaluating the factors that nurture, encourage and reward the acts of innovating. What makes innovation happen in one environment over another? Many firms are trying to sort this, and similar questions.

The answer that rises above all others is a mysterious and intangible thing commonly called Corporate Culture. Companies who employ innovators and have a record of successful innovation efforts will likely bring them into the public eye to talk about it. You will, no doubt hear a quote about their corporate culture and how it fosters innovation.

A recently released paper titled "Radical Innovation Across Nations: The Pre-eminence of Corporate Culture" addresses this. The paper was authored by Rajesh Chandy, a professor of marketing at University of Minnesota, Gerard Tellis of the University of Southern California and Jaideep Prabhu of Cambridge University. The paper calls out:

• Corporate culture is the strongest driver of radical innovation.
• Commercialization of radical innovations translates into a firm’s financial success.
• Innovation is a stronger predictor of long-term financial success; better than other popular measures (such as patents).

Very interesting concepts and well worth a read.