MediaFile

Five backward-compatible forecasts for 2011

John C Abell

Dec 27, 2010 09:18 EST

Innovation doesn’t know what day it is. It’s also true that we never seem to predict the most interesting things which actually do happen. Oh sure — years of speculation preceded Apple’s iPad announcement last January. But did anyone actually figure on the iPad?

With trepidation, then, I’ve committed to a forecast at years’ end, a moment of no moment for either tech or media. Sadly, there is no fiscal year option in the pontification game that could postpone this to a more sensible time in Q2.

So, in the spirit of tradition, I offer my First Annual Backward Compatible Tech Forecast.

1) The social net works (really!) 2010 was a franchise year for Facebook. It grew to a staggering 500 million members. Privacy-indifferent CEO Mark Zuckerberg beat out even badder-boy Julian Assange of WikiLeaks to be named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.” But 2010 was also the year of the niche social network. These small services hew to a more traditional definition of “community” by introducing strangers who share a common interest, like GetGlue and Foodspotting. Or, like Path, they harken to a quaint definition of “friend” by limiting one’s circle to 50. Yelp and Goodreads and Gowalla have been with us for a while, but the mass medium that are apps makes signing up and sticking with narrow networks effortless. And they are a lot easier to manage.

2) Can you see me now? Skype had some big problems at the end of the year, but this Internet telephony pioneer is poised to deliver, on a wide scale, the most tasty combination since the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup: mobile video conferencing on “everywhere” data networks. This is part hope and part belief in a process which, while hampered by carriers in 2010, seems increasingly inevitable — perhaps more so now with the new FCC net neutrality rules. Video phones have been rejected by every human with bad hair since AT&T showcased one at the 1964-65 New York City World’s Fair. But video calling is a hit in the age of the webcam. And since the smartphone set always has one handy, the only real impediment are carrier bandwidth caps.

3) Do these glasses make me look phat? A lot of people tried to convince me this year that 3D TV was the next big thing. It was big at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and will be a big again at next month’s CES. I don’t see 3D TV in many living rooms next year, but the campaign to make this a mainstream consumer product won’t die either. 2011 will, however, be a make-or-break year to convince people who recently bought HD TVs (because they had to) that it’s already time for a refresh cycle. As my Wired colleague Dylan Tweney argues, home 3D camera equipment may be the catalyst. “If you could actually make your own 3-D pictures and movies easily, you might have a reason to buy 3D displays like the Nintendo 3DS or — who knows? — any one of the increasing number of 3D TVs.”

Time Warner: It’s the hits, stupid

Far be it for us to be the umpteenth person to assail Wired editor Chris Anderson’s much quoted and yet much maligned book, The Long Tail, but Time Warner would rather keep churning out more “Dark Knights” and “Harry Potters” than fiddling down its long tail, thank you very much

The Long Tail, as you may recall, argues that thanks to the digitization of content and much lower cost of distribution, content producers will see more of their sales and profits being generated by niche content i.e. the long tail of their sales graph.

But Time Warner, by many measures the world’s largest media company, says that while it is seeing more niche content sales, it would rather the humongous profits you can make with a super hit like “The Dark Knight.”

The executive charged with minding the tills,  Chief Financial Officer John Martin, told a Citi investor conference that the future of Time Warner is in the big hits — even on digital outlets like iTunes, where he said it is beginning to see sales trends getting closer to the physical stores’ with their focus on blockbusters.

As consumers have more flexibility and more control over the way they actually consume media, we see more and more of the usage going to the long tail niche content and more and more of the usage going to the long tail and more and more of the usage moving to the very very biggest hits and the biggest brands and that’s really the space we’re playing in.

Martin said his company, which owns cable networks CNN and HBO,  magazines like Time and Sports Illustrated, and movie studio Warner Bros, is seeing evidence of an increasing affinity for hits across all areas of its business.

Fewer and fewer DVDs account for more and more of sales according to Martin, the same thing is seen in magazine subscriptions with the top titles growing while some of the smaller titles slow down and more Top 10 shows are being recorded on DVRs by cable subscribers.