Serious Segmentation of Online Ad Monies Defines the Spend Trend. Start segmenting by user age: the young are surrounded; the older are less tolerant of the din. Ad money will flow preferentially to luxury online and permission-based marketing.
4. High Definition Drives a Reversal in Global Standing for U.S. Bandwidth, accompanied by an extraordinary bandwidth increase. Rabbit ratios (MHz/dollar) jump worldwide, with the U.S. suddenly leading in growth rate. Provision of 5-10 Mbps will not be unusual in the U.S., which will see the most rapid bandwidth takeup increase YTY to date, as users start to demand HD-quality video everywhere. The FCC looks foolish and oh so art deco, again. Australia looks smart.
5. Fake Internets Become Serious International Liabilities, as corporations pressure countries to behave according to international business norms – specifically, China, Burma, and a handful of other countries with Fake Internets. Fake Nets imply weakness, government failure, and second-class status for these countries and their citizens.
If the Net is the source of intellectual fulfillment and economic growth, exactly which citizens don’t deserve access? Real Net access is on the path to becoming an international human right.
6. One-to-One Education Is Accepted As the Global Goal. Three-quarters of U.S. school superintendents are planning for it. Maine, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Utah; England, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Nigeria, India, and China are implementing it. If your state or country is not planning for this, you will be left behind in the 21st century. Using global digitized knowledge to teach and learn will become the only obvious solution in education; the goal becomes connecting every child to this knowledge via the Net.
7. U.S. Healthcare (finally) Gets Diagnosed, as a result of the presidential campaign. Reforming healthcare will challenge Iraq as the primary issue of concern during the year. (In 2009, something gets done about it.)
8. CarryAlongPCs Become Commonplace. Small personal computers (UMPCs/micro notebooks) gain their own as a category as these new “CarryAlongs” are introduced by major players – a trend expanded by the iPhone and currently best served by the Samsung Q1.
9. LEDs See a Meaningful Shift into Industrial/Commercial/Residential Use. Pricing drops aggressively, and new uses and conformations of LEDs become available.
10. 2008: The Year of the First Production and Commercial Sale of Alternative-Energy Cars in the U.S. Yes, we had the much-missed EV-1 a decade ago, and lots of golf cart-like things since, but this will be the year of never-turning-back on commercial alternative-energy vehicles. While GM dawdles over the Volt, Honda will deliver the hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity in California. The all-electric Tesla Roadster will be produced and silently speeding down our streets, with more for sale and new orders taken for its WhiteStar 5-person sedan. New electric sports cars from Altairnano, Phoenix Motors, and other California brands will make seeing an alternative-energy car on the road something new, and more common.