Predictions 2007 - Part I
by Aner Ravon

It’s that time of the year again, time to start summarizing 2006 and to try and predict 2007.

As you can imagine I have a lot to say about both. I’d like to start this series, however, with predicting my personal top 10:

1. “SEO will kill the Internet Star” and GOOG will drop below 300. GOOG won’t crash and Google will still perform extremely well. Never the less, the online advertising market will become more efficient, educated, competitive and and realistic. The value of a single click will drop and it will show.

2. Facebook will be acquired for much less then a billion dollars. Social networks are here to stay, but they cannot individually be virtually worth that much forever.

3. WiFi phones won’t happen this year. Mobile WiFi is still too difficult to operate, provides too little benefits and does not enjoy operators promotion. Nokia et al will market conceptual WiFi phones but will de-facto utilize them as a learning curve / spring board to WiMax in 2008-9.

4. The rebirth of Super Blogs - Blog consolidation will begin this year under “super blog” brands. I can easily envision the TechCrunch and GigaOM 3rd party program aggregating hundreds of blogs. I believe so can Mike Arrington , Pete Cashmore and Om Malik.

5. Operators will remain the super channel for value added services - off-deck services will not surpass on-deck services, but operators will develop programs for “easy-decking” of services. Google / YouTube / Verizon is a first and good example for why.

6. Video integrated advertising will take off, and not only by YouTube. It makes sense, it’s ready, everybody needs to monetize video and if served correctly users won’t mind.

7. Skype will take a plunge, as Skype will face significant challenges in fighting off uprising competitors who offer free calls using a phone instead of a computer. Phone numbers are still stickier than user names. Check out Jajah and see if you agree.

8. Finally, an iPhone this year. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the iPhone will capture a marginal, negligible market of already captive Apple addicts.

9. Video calls will start making an impact. With support from all IM and VOIP desktop services and with 3G gaining critical mass - video calls will come of age in 2007.

10. No change in DRM. This is one prediction I’d love to be wrong about, but I still think Microsoft will push their own with Vista, Apple will do their own as well, Nokia will not take a side and users will continue to not care, rip and share.  

Aner Ravon
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