The Road In 2008

Ken Camp has written a killer post about what he sees coming in 2008 up on his blog.

It got me thinking along the same lines so here are some random thoughts from my "Honeymoon" idled technology mind:

1) Bandwidth Speeds-both at home and mobile will increase. This will lead towards what I feel are sorely needed tiered pricing models in the USA and more options for Pay As You Go for Mobile Data like we're seeing in the UK.

2) Divergence and Convergence Will Both Arrive-We're seeing more powerful chipsets coming down the pike from TI, Qualcomm, Broadcom and of course Intel and AMD. This is leading to smaller, lighter and more powerful devices. While some devices like the Apple iPhone and Nokia Internet Tablets will be convergence devices, I expect more single purpose Amazon Kindle like divergence devices that rely on better, more stable and faster wireless (both EVDO/HSUDA and WiFi) connected devices to help achieve the state of always on/staying connected but that are geared for one thing done very well, and other tasks available like email, IM, simple word processing, posting, etc.

3) Video becomes a more accepted form of two way communications, both in real time ala SightSpeed, Skype, ooVoo, etc., as well as store and post ala Seesmic, VLIP, vPod and others.

4) Mobile WiMax gets the same attention that Metricom's Ricochet did, and likely ends up with the same result unless someone looks back into history and realizes the mistakes made and how to avoid them.

5) VOIP stops being the alternative to POTS and largely becomes the way calls are handled by the phone company as more FIOS and uVerse gets deployed, especially in new housing communities.

6) Working from Home and office hotels keeps growing as the environmental forces continue to take hold. This means more office space becomes available, and homes in communities with better bandwidth start to take on the same cachet at those with better schools.

7) More communities begin to look at their agreements with cellular antenna companies and cable operators and look at what more they can get for their citizens. The muni wireless fiascos of 2007 are causing a rethink of what can be done and how.

8) Social media continues to supplement or replace mainstream media as primary sources of information. As such the more progressive MSM acquires site networks like GigaOm, TechCrunch, Gawker, etc., installs folks like Arrington, Malik, etc, into key positions to really make their audience oriented content work.

Well, it is time to go to breakfast..more on this later perhaps....

P.S. Check out Jim Courtney's Top Ten 2007 Skype Developments..like Ken Camp's post its a good read over morning coffee.

Comments

[Saul]

Hey Andy. I am here as a representative of ooVoo and I wanna thank you for mentioning ooVoo in your list. You mention some really interesting "predictions". I think that point 6 "working from home" will become increasingly important. In fact, I do all my work from home and personally I think it is one of the most environmentally friendly actions you can take in todays world. I think that it is the perfect convergence of environment and technology and this approach will become increasingly relevant and has the potential to completely shift our societies.

The other issue that I think will become increasingly important in the USA is our ability to purchase cell phones irrespective of the cell phone network we utilize. With the end result of a far better integration with global cell phone networks. I live half the year in the USA and half the year in SA and I have had to own two cellphones and am not able to receive my US based calls while in SA without using things like Skype forwarding or other technology fixes.

Okay, well that was a long comment. But you got me thinking with your list.