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"There are a few ways you can go with prediction posts.  You can speculate wildly (perhaps a little more fun), make some educated guesses, or, take a look at some trends from the prior year and make some predictions about how they\u2019ll play out when the calendar switches over.  For my predictions list, I went with the latter, making my best bets on how trends we saw in \u201907 will translate into big deals, new technologies, and emerging themes we will see in the new year.  So, without further ado, here's my list of predictions for 2008:\nNews Corp Monetizes MySpace \u2026 By Selling It\nNews Corp made one of the savviest investments in recent memory when they acquired MySpace for $580 million in July, 2005.  Since then, smaller rival Facebook has received a valuation of $15 billion via an investment from Microsoft, and significantly smaller companies like Bebo and Digg have also been looking for 9 to 10 digit exits.  \nWhile MySpace lost the war for blogger mindshare this year to Facebook, it remains number one in terms of users.  The company could continue to further monetize the site \u2013 a big ad deal with Google and continuing efforts to ramp up its own sales force indicate it is trying to do so.  But the quickest and easiest way for the company to get a big return on investment for News Corp shareholders is to sell it, and I think they would be well advised to go that route.   \nThe blogosphere has a flair for the dramatic and loves to predict \u201CThe Death of [insert here],\u201D but in reality, MySpace still has time to get it act together.  But so far, they\u2019re doing a poor job of keeping up with competitors, with recent design updates doing little to win the hearts and minds of users or analysts, and still offering no actual platform developers can use in a meaningful way, despite the hookup with Google for OpenSocial.  News Corp shareholders and MySpace users would be best-served by selling the company to someone that at least sort of understands the Internet, with the obvious choices being Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo.  \nHulu Gets Popular\nWhile as proponents of user-generated media we would love to predict the death of anything new that old media comes up with, the fact of the matter is that the audience for professionally produced, high quality video content still dominates in terms of numbers.  Top TV shows still generate tens of millions of viewers per week and hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and merchandising revenue, numbers no online viral video sensation can dream of touching.  \nThat said, audiences are moving online, and at the forefront of the effort to capture them is Hulu, the joint video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.  Still in private beta, Hulu will eventually (making the big assumption these companies don\u2019t screw up) house the bulk of the original programming these two mega-media companies produce.  As it opens up its doors to the masses, both companies have incredible resources to promote the service, and ad sales teams in place to make it immensely profitable.  \nFrankly, with how scarce my free time is these days, I\u2019d rather head to Hulu and watch an hour of programming I know I\u2019m going to enjoy like \u201C24\u201D or \u201CThe Office\u201D than watch teenagers do skateboarding tricks on YouTube.  That, along with the threat of lawsuits, is why YouTube is increasingly cutting deals with big media to acquire content.\nMobile Social Networking Takes Off \u2026 Sort Of\nI\u2019m pretty sure people have predicted the mobile Web would be huge in end-of-year prediction lists for at least 5 or 6 years running.  In fact, I think I may have first made the prediction myself in an essay when applying for college back in 1999.  This year, I think there are actually a number of trends that could culminate in it actually being a successful year for mobile applications, especially for those tied to social networking.\nFirst, Google Android, once out in the wild, has potential to totally change the barrier to entry for mobile applications.  Before, building mobile apps often required different versions for each handset and carrier.  While tons of Web companies were quick to jump on the iPhone bandwagon and optimize their apps for the hot-selling Apple device, developing apps for the \u201Clong tail\u201D of devices has always been an arduous task, and still is for the most part.  Android has the potential to change this, and, with all of the carriers except for AT&amp;T participating, there is a good chance Google\u2019s mobile operating system will.\nAnother factor that will help drive mobile applications forward is the big social networks: namely Facebook.  While Facebook\u2019s platform for Web apps received a ton of hype this year, their similar effort for mobile apps was a bit of an after-thought.  However, what they\u2019ve already done for the Blackberry and iPhone makes mobile social networking a breeze, and assuming open mobile platforms continue to progress, we should see similar great products that work on any device.  \nI think stand-alone mobile applications will continue to have a tough time finding real (aka \u2013 active) users, but piggybacking on Facebook (and presumably MySpace if they launch a mobile OS) could create some big winners, especially in areas like geo-presence.  One app that caught my eye recently is Whereboutz by Telenav (yes, that Telenav, the company that provides GPS services).  Their Facebook app will eventually combine GPS data with your Facebook friend\u2019s list to let you know where people are at.  When it does, why bother signing up for a standalone service that requires a separate account and friend\u2019s list?\nBlogs Become Hot Acquisition Targets\nAfter spending the second-half of this year working in a full-time capacity here at Mashable, and all the while noticing countless stories of the decline of newspapers and magazines, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that big media needs to start buying blogs.  \nWhile I can\u2019t share all of our numbers with you, I can share the fact that the economics of running a blog are infinitely better than those of maintaining a print media business.  At Mashable, we employ a virtual team of 5 regulars, with several additional contributors.  We are completely virtual and our only ongoing overhead consists primarily of a server that is managed by a third-party.  Meanwhile, we attract a good sized niche audience that advertisers are more than happy to pay a premium to reach.  Long story short: the economics of running a blog business rock.  \nThat said, unlike a lot of pundits, I don\u2019t think newspapers and magazines are going to \u201Cdie.\u201D  They still have the deepest contacts, huge brand cache, and still break the majority of the big stories that we link to and analyze in the blogosphere.  But the economics suck, the business isn't growing, and while in-house blogging efforts are gaining some traction (see Bits at New York Times), the quickest and most economical way for old media to take advantage of the medium is to buy up niche blogs in the categories that their audiences care about.  \nGmail Removes \u201CBeta\u201D Status\nDespite its $200+ billion valuation and more than 15,000 people on payroll, Google still loves to pretend it\u2019s a cute little company, and one of the ways it does that aside from regularly changing its logo to commemorate different occasions is by senselessly keeping \u201Cbeta\u201D status on mature products like Gmail.  \nGmail is hands-down the best webmail service from the large Web companies and keeping \u201Cbeta\u201D on at this point is just plain silly and not fair to users.  It gives Gmail an excuse to be unreliable and have errors, of which, I only experienced a few that lasted beyond a few seconds in 2007.  \nAs users of web-based applications, we understand things can go wrong from time-to-time, and Gmail has reached a point where major outages are rare, and minor annoyances are par for the course that can be expected with most any app \u2013 web-based or on the desktop.  With great new features this year such as AIM integration and IMAP support, Gmail is setting the web-mail agenda.  Continuing to call it \u201CBeta\u201D is laughable.  \nFacebook Truly Goes Mainstream\nAre your parents on MySpace?  Probably not.  Are they on Facebook?  Maybe.  With a clean interface and a focus on privacy options (despite Beacongate), Facebook has made itself a social network that potentially anyone can use.  \nFacebook recently added the ability to group your friends into different categories, and while many other sites have had this feature for years, none of them were in quite the same position as Facebook with tens of millions of active users.  What this means is that coming soon, you will be able to allow different groups different levels of access to specific parts of your profile, which means the service can safely be used with your closest friends, most distant colleagues, or your overbearing parents.  \nThis has long been my vision for social networking, and I think Facebook is now in a position to make it happen.  Social networking and blogging gives everyone I know (that cares) the ability to keep up with me, and with a high-level of privacy controls, I will be able to keep everyone in the loop without compromising my privacy or offending anyone (since I won\u2019t have to \u201Cdeny\u201D anyone access to my network).  \nStartup Consolidation \nAs someone that reads through countless startup pitches and looks at hundreds of new web sites weekly, I can say with some sense of authority that there are too many companies chasing too many of the same ideas.  While a lucky few will be able to leverage contacts, good marketing campaigns, and loads of VC funding to acquire the amount users necessary for a sustainable business, most will die a quiet and unremarkable death.  \nThat said, unlike typical businesses where failure means a store closing or an office shutting down, lots of startups that don\u2019t end in multi-million dollar exists will still create value, whether it be in the form of programming, interface, or a great group of people.  \nLooking at these two trends, what makes the most sense to me is for small teams to get together in order to become successful.  Rather than liquidating assets on eBay and taking a vacation to Mexico, I\u2019d like to see more startups combining forces to create long-term value.  For better or for worse, some companies are good at marketing, while others are brilliant developers but have no idea as to how to gain users.  I think as the market for big M&amp;A slows, a more common route will be for these two types of businesses to get together in a way that creates value for both parties.  \nMicrosoft Finally Buys Yahoo\nThe only way to create real competition in search is for another company to have market share that rivals Google.  While entrepreneurs have been able to convince many VCs that they have the answer, the only real way to do it any time soon is for Microsoft to buy Yahoo and instantly claim between 30-40% of the search market (depending on whose numbers you use).  With Yahoo continuing to languish and Microsoft stock ending the year at its highest point since the dotcom bubble; it seems that the timing is right for a deal.  \nLinkedIn Files to Go Public, Then Withdraws, Then Changes Business Model\nLike Classmates.com, which recently withdrew its plans to go public, LinkedIn is currently stuck in a business model that charges for what is free elsewhere.  Charging for sending messages and requesting introductions is not going to be sustainable in the long-term when competitors are making everything free and ad-supported.  Further, with Facebook\u2019s aforementioned privacy options, pretty soon the once college-only social networking will be a safe place to engage with your professional network.\nOn the plus side, LinkedIn\u2019s traffic is continuing to grow, and the company serves a lucrative user base that advertisers will pay a premium to reach.  This why short of going public, a sale to News Corp, parent company of The Wall Street Journal, is not out of the question.   Email Doesn\u2019t Die\nEmail still won\u2019t die in 2008, but many bloggers will continue to pontificate on the subject, which will provide endless fodder for future TechMeme pile-ons.  \nIn fact, to elaborate on my Gmail prediction, I think email is actually about to become even more useful.  Between new social features like chat, and potential to integrate things like VoIP (which I suggested Gmail do via acquisition) and social networking, email is going to become an operating system of sorts on which many other activities can take place.  Further, with Blackberries and other devices that support mobile email continuing to gain more mainstream users, 2008 might actually be the second coming of email (email 2.0 anyone?).  \n\u2014\nConclusions\nWhile as the case with most any set of predictions, most of those I\u2019ve listed probably won\u2019t come true, but one thing is for certain: Mashable will be here to cover all that is new and interesting on the Web in 2008.  With that, feel free to comment on my list or leave your own predictions.  Happy Holidays and best wishes in the New Year!"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2007/12/25/adam-ostrow-2008-predictions/>