Top Trends
The Washington Post says we bought too much "newfangled stuff" in the 1990s. Dadnabbit, they may be wrong. We bought a lot of stuff that early adopters used to be the only ones lining up to buy, and we're paying for it still in burnt fingers and bad user experiences. It wasn't just the newness, it was the beta-quality of so much stuff that was a problem.
The lede of the story is what bugged me enough to post one of these year-end look-ahead pieces that can be filed weeks before they are actually published. The predictions are obvious and uninspired.
Here are my predictions for the year, in no particular order:
802.11 b/a access point installed base grows 230 percent.
Broadband access in the U.S. reaches 34 percent of households and small businesses.
DSL subscribership gains on cable modem subscribership, ending the year with approximately 40 percent of the U.S. broadband home/SOHO market.
Streaming media usage increases, driving associated ad/sponsorship revenues up by 70 percent or more.
Time-shifting of programming becomes a major consumer value proposition, both in video and audio. People begin to break free of the idea of a programming schedule controlled by a broadcaster.
The NASDAQ gains 3.8 percent on the year, largely because so many companies are delisted. The Dow is down thirty percent at least twice during the year and ends down six percent to 10 percent.
It will be a record year for small business bankruptcies, creating even greater problems in consumer demand.
The pace of network infrastructure acquisitions will pick up. WorldCom will be sold in roughly one big chunk. The buyer? BellSouth, SBC or British Telecom (Bush throws Blair a bone on the issue of foreign ownership for all he's done in the war on terror and everyone else)
AOL will pass the 39 million user mark globally. MSN will pick up an additional 2.5 million ISP customers but will focus on delivering the broadband skin version of its software in head-to-head competition with AOL's broadband efforts.
Wireless handset unit sales will be up, revenues down. The typical cost of 1,000 minutes of anytime air time will be $55 by November. Wireless carriers will continue to use data services, even "3G" high-speed data, as a loss leader, driving intense demand for application services and content partnerships by carriers.
Housing prices ease, but don't collapse, as interest rates remain at historically low levels all year.
Consumer credit debt is reduced as households put more into paying off debt than buying more newfangled stuff.
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at December 31, 2002 12:47 PM | TrackBack