The 2012 Technological Unpredictions

By Gerald McGrew on February 3, 2012 in Other

I find the best way to write my Webshite column is to ignore the deadline for an entire month then get it done on the lounge in a couple of hours. However, I’ve been pondering my tech and online predictions for 2012 since last December. I’ve asked all sorts of people what they think will happen. I’ve even read perhaps half of the millions of words written by expert nerd forecasters. And it’s obvious that no one has a clue what will happen next.

Then it struck me – instead of trying to predict what will happen, why not tell you what won’t?

For example, no one is going to make a proper competitor to the iPad. Sony, Samsung or Mother Theresa could come up with a tablet that also babysat the kids while you smashed cans at the local, or turned up to work for you on the Monday after a festival weekend… and it would still suck massively compared to the iPad.

The same goes with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Their absolute dominance means that they won’t be threatened. There’ll be the occasional insignificant upstart, but mostly all that these Internet super powers will do in 2012 is cut deals together and cut each other’s market-share grass.

I also predict that no one like Steve Jobs will die in 2012. Even if Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the two what’s-their-names that invented Google carked it on the same day, nothing would match the universal outpouring of gadget-addicted angst we saw when the Apple guru passed last year.

What won’t be worth more than an embarrassed whisper by the end of 2012? The once very noisy Yahoo. It was in 2009 that MySpace started to go into freefall, and 2012 will be that year for Yahoo. Will anything save them? No.

Groupon is another that won’t be enjoying 2012 as much as they did the last couple of years. Anyone who has signed up to deal sites knows that local and targeted efforts are super, and large players blasting a thousand bullshit deals a day are rubbish. And with Groupon being the largest and most blastiest of the lot, they’ll be the first with their backs to the wall.

There won’t be another Julian Assange in 2012, as the market for global dobbers is obviously limited. Besides, we all know now that governments are up to bad shit. This also means the creepy, intense, semi-albino look will be out, which is awful news for many inner-city hipster douche bags. Sorry boys and girls!

I don’t predict the death of the television either. No single technology – Apple’s rumoured iTV, Telstra’s godforsaken T-Box or illegal downloading – is going to stop us from watching free-to-air TV, replete with ads that make us want to punch ourselves in the crotch (thanks Normie Rowe – I’m sending Ron Casey round to your retirement village!).

My final unprediction for 2012? Nothing is going to rake in as much thrusty money online as good ol’ porn. Amazon and other traditional e-tailers will dare to dream in 2012, but they’ll be like Mother Theresa’s faux iPad – a day late and a dollar short.

I’d say porn has too much of a ‘head’ start – but you know I don’t stoop to puns!