The problem with trying to predict the future is that we are almost always wrong. But, given it’s a new decade I thought I would take a crack at some fun prognostication.
Five predictions for 2010:
1. Increasing transparency (decreasing privacy). The lines between online and offline will dissolve. Your online identity will be your identity. Privacy will be a quaint notion that we conjure for nostalgia. Google buys Facebook and your Facebook profile will be your key to the internet. You are now part of the Borg collective.
2. Time will become further entrenched as the currency of social media. Will you spend your time consuming my content? Will you spend your time sharing my links? Can you spare a moment to read my blog post? “Hey brother spare some time?”. By year’s end Google engineers perfect cloning.
3. Mobile will become the de-facto standard. Being chained to a desk (or a laptop) will be an antiquated form of low-grade torture. We will be always on, from anywhere.
4. The lines between what’s real and what isn’t will start to fade. QR codes and augmented reality will increasingly be used to add interactivity to tangible objects.
5. Robots. Evil Roombas will plot to destroy the world. Judgement Day is real.
In the new year a typical advertisement will read: “Hello Mike Klein, do you have 15 seconds? How’s that Starbuck’s coffee you are drinking at the corner of 45th and 3rd? Your friends who bought coffee this morning also enjoyed a bagel. Click here (a button is projected onto your cup) to purchase a bagel and a robot will bring it to you shortly.”
