So I didn’t think I would get into this kind of thing, but when Pete Cashmore of Mashable nominates you for a meme-ing game, who’s got the stones to say no? Without further ado, here are (some) of my predictions for 2007.
1. Pay Per Blogging Will Survive And Grow: As much as it churns some stomachs to think it, paying bloggers for their posts, opinions, or content will continue unabated throughout 2007. It took hold with deep grassroots in 2006, as marginalized d-list bloggers loved the idea of getting paid to blog. The entire category will, by the end of 2008, be a recognized and, amongst marketers, cheap and legitimate way of farming out grassroots buzz. As the category grows, we’ll see even more marketing companies try to grow a system like PayPerPost and ReviewMe; furthermore, A-list bloggers will continue to beat their chests over how wrong the idea is, not realizing that the reality is a foregone conclusion.
2. News aggregators will Thrive: With the idea that News-is-commodity as never more important, vertical algorithmic aggregators will continue to thrive, intermediating themselves between users and their news source. Although Google News heralded the way, sites like Techmeme, Tailrank, and Megite will all survive and thrive in their respective areas. Their growth will be covered by the mainstream media (ironically), and somewhere in the middle of the year, the entire category will explode.
3. Traditional News Organizations, in all their forms, will begin their painful evolution into amedia, social, entity: Newspapers will continue to whither and die at a glacially slow pace; some pioneeres will strike out with interesting crowdsourcing experiments, but they will all find their salvation in embracing change, not fighting it. The next stage in evolution of the news is something that all news organizations will discover, in that it is almost entirely based on a unique voice and brand, that “news” is really a commodity, and that every news organization cannot be defined the original medium that they were born in to. The future of news, for those traditional news outlets, is not JUST blogs, forums, podcasting, crowdsourcing, television, or newspapers — it is, potentially, all of those things together.
4. The Marketing and Pr Industry Will Divide into the “Gets it” and “Doesn’t Get It”. Although marketing and PR textbooks will record Edelman’s historic Wal-Mart flogging gaffe as one of the most public “learning events” of nascent social media marketing, because of the wide disconnect in marketing executives KNOWING that blogging is important, and actually DOING blogging itself, 2007 will continue to see lesser gaffe’s of this kind. Marketers will be divided into two camps: those who still dont’ get it, and try to manipulate, control, and command the message … and a small minority who still try and manipulate social media for their own clients, but who have grown up with social media. As a result, they respect it, and allow a participatory atmostphere in their marketing strategies. Or at least, they will give the appearance of doing so to the point of being convincing enough, thereby avoiding blogospheric backlash.
5. Tagging Games Like This Will Continue: Blogging will continue in many forms; blog networks will quietly survive, more bloggers will wade out of the d-list pool by virtue of talent sometimes, and in others, by sheer persistence. And tagging games like this will help them along, by spreading the link love. And then, in about another few months, there will be a hew and cry about how “tired” these games are, and will die out amongst “a-listers”. Like blog carnivals, tagging games will continue amongst the lower strata of bloggers as they try and link themselves into a good Google Rank, but, like email “forwards”, will never entirely die.
And I guess here is where I nominate a few bloggers of my own, and I guess they’ll be Amit, Aaron, Stacy, and Lance.
December 29th, 2006 at 8:49 pm | Permalink
[...] From Deep Jive Interests: [...]
December 31st, 2006 at 9:07 am | Permalink
Tony,
I’m probably biased given I was a reporter for a long time but I think there will be a place for newspapers within the new media landscape, although they’ll have to make room for blogs, podcasts, etc. As much as newspapers need to embrace the Web, they also have to stop focusing on what’s happened (aka the news) and, instead, focus on telling people what the news means (aka perspective, insight). This is why the New York Times and WSJ have continued to stay relevant, as well as frequently cited by bloggers. Happy New Year!
Mark
December 31st, 2006 at 10:34 am | Permalink
[...] I’m not one for predictions (I’ll leave that exercise for folks like Peter Cashmore and Tony Hung) so I’ll focus on the year that was. The highlight was the birth of my son, Elias, whose arrival managed to interrupt the one movie (Bad Cop, Bon Cop) my wife and I actually went to a theatre to see. My wife, Pamela, and I are truly blessed to have three beautiful children. Among the other highlights: - A new job with b5media Inc. after five years watching/writing about the Web with the National Post (Thanks, Jeremy Wright and Rick Segal, for convincing me to take another stab at a Web start-up). - The success of the mesh conference, which exceeded the wildest dreams of myself and my co-organizers Rob Hyndman, Mathew Ingram, Stuart Macdonald and Michael Macderment. We’re excited about mesh ‘07, which happens May 30-31, 2007 in Toronto. - The redesign of my blog by Ben Bleikamp, who helped me move to Wordpress after nearly three years with Blogware. (Thanks to Ben and TheGoodBlogs’ Vern Lun, who’s been helping me tweak the new and improved Mark Evans). - The successful re-launch of CanadianTire.com, in which my brother, Sean, played a key role. - New high-tech tools such as the MacBook, Slingbox, 1Passwd and the never-ending number of tool Web 2.0 services/site that continue to fascinate me. - The emergence of a new wave of Canadian bloggers such as Tony Hung, Aidan Henry and Austin Hill. [...]
December 31st, 2006 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
Mark,
I totally agree.
Providing meaning and perspective is at times more valuable than breaking the news itself, although clearly getting “the story” has currency to! Its kind of what I meant by voice, branding, and so on, which are really buzzwords for breaking and enriching the news in a unique and appealing way.
Heck, I’ve heard this stat, and I really believe it to be true — 1% of bloggers will ‘break’ the news, 9% will enrich the news and the remaining 90% will consume the news.
Its hard to be that 1% because it often requires connections that people don’t have. But its easier to be part of the 10%, because all that takes is a little brain sweat. And I’ve found you can’t grow a blog if you’re just in thte bottom 90%.
Cheers
t
January 1st, 2007 at 3:06 pm | Permalink
Tony,
I think the future never comes quite as quickly as you think, especially wrt your predictions 1-3. on a related note, see my prediction #5 below, among my other ‘07 calls. Details after the jump if you’re interested
1. Ecommerce 2.0 arrives
2. Widgets find a business model
3. Lead generation breaks into new categories
4. Social Networking finally becomes a feature
5. News of TV’s death are greatly exaggerated
6. Software as a Service gets customer facing
January 1st, 2007 at 9:10 pm | Permalink
Jeremy … thanks for stopping by. And re: suggestions 1-3, I guess we’ll have to wait until the end of 2007 to see, won’t we? :)
Your own 5 are interesting — particularly the thoughts about widgets finding a business model; I also have no idea how that will happen, and seeing as I don’t, I’m not sure if they *will* develop a business model. But I suppose *I’ll* have to wait until the end of 2007 to see as well. ;)
Cheers
t
January 2nd, 2007 at 10:15 am | Permalink
ooohhh…that blog carnival comment stings!
I just started a new one in The Garage to replace a popular automotive one that was terminated due to the host’s lack of time. I feel lame now!
thanks Tony ;)
February 11th, 2007 at 12:47 am | Permalink
[...] [SMUG ALERT] If my rant sounded familiar, its because in my “2007 predictions” the ruthless evolution of traditional (and print) media was predicted in number three[/SMUG ALERT] [...]
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 am | Permalink
thanks
August 27th, 2007 at 6:39 am | Permalink
I just started a new one in The Garage to replace a popular automotive one that was terminated due to the host’s lack of time. I feel lame now!
September 5th, 2007 at 8:37 pm | Permalink
great
October 6th, 2007 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
ooohhh…that blog carnival comment stings! :P
October 14th, 2007 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
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November 25th, 2007 at 12:51 pm | Permalink
Tnak you.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:26 am | Permalink
Jeremy … thanks for stopping by. And re: suggestions 1-3, I guess we’ll have to wait until the end of 2007 to see, won’t we? :)
Your own 5 are interesting — particularly the thoughts about widgets finding a business model; I also have no idea how that will happen, and seeing as I don’t, I’m not sure if they *will* develop a business model. But I suppose *I’ll* have to wait until the end of 2007 to see as well. ;)
Cheers
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February 18th, 2008 at 10:47 am | Permalink
I don’t see Newspapers as entirely dying.
But here is one thing I hope the advent of the ‘new media’ WILL do to the media in general : change the media from one of judgement to one of justice.
What do I mean by that? Well, it’s pretty obvious that the news media is less interested in justice than it is in judgement. They like to judge people, especially those who were hailed as hero’s yesterday. They like to ‘dig up dirt’ on people, as it is. Judgement.
The media’s job SHOULD be to focus on justice issues, but they prefer to focus on people themselves and judge people according to their own code. It’s my hope that the New Media, being in the hands of the real public, will change this.
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