Mostly, I'm writing this post so I'll have something to make fun of in a December 31, 2011 blog post. So here goes ...
- We're going to see a lot of interest in business models that sell new customer relationships to existing businesses. The current poster child for this business model is Groupon. If they can successfully validate this business model (and this is by no means a slam dunk) look for Facebook to pull a fast-follow and enter the market in 2011.
- Kinect is going to have a big impact on Microsoft's image in the consumer market. Last Wednesday, I saw a crowd of nearly 50 people watch a kid play Dance Central at the Microsoft Store in Bellevue. The kid was good - and got a big round of applause from the crowd when he was done. The crowd spontaneously formed around him as he played, with some people literally stopping dead in their tracks walking by the store. Kinect's open relationship with the hacker community is also going to play a huge role in establishing it as a mainstream technology, particularly for PCs; the guy in the picture is playing WoW via Kinect. I predict that we'll see a Kinect "halo effect" that extends into consumer PCs, which will be driven by ISV's who take advantage of some of the libraries being created by the hacker community.
- We're going to see a lot more evidence that HTML 5 is a legitimate application platform. The major platform vendors The Pirates and Daisies tower defense game is just the first of many more apps to come. I predict that a major game publisher will announce and/or deliver a web-based game using nothing but HTML 5 in 2011.
Happy New Year everyone!
