Crystal Balls And Porn Falls

By Gerald McGrew on January 30, 2013 in Other

It’s that exciting time of the year again where we check the accuracy of my predictions from 12 months ago. And in 2012 I had a blinder!

Groupon and Yahoo were predicted to fade, and indeed they did. Group buying in general has turned into an online two-dollar shop and Yahoo pinched Google’s most hated employee and made her their CEO. The iPad was not going to have any real competition in 2012, and sure enough every other tablet maker launched nothing but crap. No one as big as Steve Jobs died and the death of television didn’t happen.

However, there was one prediction I had very wrong. Online porn has been a bulletproof money-spinner since forever, but in 2012 it struggled. With ‘tube’ sites like RedTube and PornTube offering loads (snigger) of triple-x for free, the paying model looks broken. Combine this with the US and European GFC hangover and very few paid the required rate for their regular wristies.

So what will happen in the tech and online world in 2013?

For a start, the Samsung versus Apple smartphone battle will stop mattering. The vast majority simply won’t give a shit. Both brands make phones that do basically the same stuff, just in different ways. It’s going to be like two V8 Supercar fans arguing over Ford versus Holden. They’ll punch on and look like massive dickheads; the average person will wonder what’s for dinner.

Will 2013 be the year that Facebook makes serious coin from mobile advertising? No. They’ll try very hard but I predict no one is going to work out how to make the most of the limited screen size and even more limited attention span of the average phone user. Will Zuckerberg remain CEO? I think yes, but investors and Facebook’s own users will make it tough for him to stay in the hot seat. Besides, he’s only about 13 years old; he really should be enjoying masturbation and worrying about high school exams.

This year will be tough(er) on our television moguls. Channel 10 may well succumb, while Nine think they have the digital brains to come back bigger and badder than ever. 2013 will see the first serious skirmishes in the ‘social TV’ war, i.e. the art of f**king about on Facebook, Twitter or online forum while watching the telly. We already have ABC’s Q&A broadcasting smarmy, smart-arse tweets to viewers in real time, but this year we’ll see even cleverer ways to prove your smarminess and smart-arsedness to friends and strangers watching the box. With all this digital ‘look-at-me’ invading your screen, is 2013 the year that you sell your television and join the local library?

My final prediction for 2013 is that Apple is going to lose some of its mojo. The iPhone 5 and iPad Mini were widely considered a bit ‘meh’, even by their most rabid iFrothing fans. Meanwhile, the march of Android continues, outpacing the iPhone in 2012. Apple is suitably worried. Even worse, Microsoft has decided to have a crack at being risky and interesting for the first time in 20 years with its Surface computer and the somewhat dubious Windows 8.

Overall, being online in 2013 will guarantee far less privacy, extra intrusive advertising and even more social shite from complete strangers.

I might see you at the library after all!