My good friend and fellow Buckeye, Eric Kerr, recently wrote a great lengthy post outlining his 2010 predictions for the tech world. Some of the predictions are obvious. Others require a better market (economically) before they happen, which I am very hopeful for. Some of the predictions are so out there, showing me a perspective I hadn’t even pondered or thought of.

This is a must-read, I greatly urge you to click and read the predictions as soon as you can.

As always, I agree with many of his points and disagree with some. So, I thought I should just write my response to these predictions. Keep in mind I am not going to be re-copying the exact text of each prediction as I want you to go and read each one of them on his site.

Mobile / Hardware

1. iPhone AppStore backlash continues and Apple does nothing about it.

The biggest reason the iPhone is so successful for Apple is its App Store. That is the true secret recipe behind the device. In order for Android to gain footing in this industry and for old players like RIM and Palm to secure their place, they must develop their own successful App Store. That requires significant wooing on their part regarding developers.

As great as iPhone apps are, I hear it’s a pain to develop the apps. This is just from a developer perspective and doesn’t even mention Apple’s administrative policies.

Android is slowly gathering momentum and has thousands of apps in its App Market now, while Palm is doing all it can to woo developers. Apple will be Apple and I feel that that will only hurt them in the long run.

2. Mobile CPA monetization in games gets hot.

3. E-Reader device popularity continues to rise. Amazon polishes its Kindle and B&N struggles to create comparable demand for Nook.

I am a huge advocate for Amazon in this race. I am a proud Kindle owner. This is really similar to Apple owing much of the success of the iPhone to the fantastic Apple Store. I agree with this prediction 100%. In this race, Amazon is Apple and B&N is Nokia or Motorola.

4. TechCrunch effectively loses CrunchPad lawsuit, but JooJoo fails anyway.

I wrote a post shortly after this occurred on why Michael is the real winner in this situation.

There is no chance in hell that the JooJoo will have any success, especially in the year when the rumored iSlate is released. Fusion Garage was and will remain a company layered in obscurity, now shrouded in a dark cloud of legal uncertainty. Not good.

I am a big fan of Mike and strongly believe that there’s a space in the market for an entry level tablet. If Apple comes out with the iSlate, it will still be at a certainly high level. We need an entry level tablet and I want the CrunchPad to be it.

Mike should just start over…everyone will be there to support him.

5. Verizon doesn’t land with iPhone.

I have no idea. This is one of the greatest wonderings today in the tech world. I have no idea what will happen but I strongly disagree with AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity. Ironically, I think their network’s performance with the iPhone (the reason behind the many complaints) will only get better once they lose their exclusivity.

6. Microsoft struggles with Windows 7 Mobile and remains irrelevant in the mobile space.

Ha.

7. Apple Tablet launches with pseudo-iPhone OS complete with AppStore.

iWant.

8. Android proves itself as a formidable competitor to Apple and becomes second overall to iPhone by year’s end.

I disagree with the Droid being the best Android phone. I really love HTC and their Sense UI.

I strongly agree with the prediction that Android will only become stronger, but I disagree with it being a formidable opponent and competitor to Apple.

Simply put, they serve very different roles. Android will kill WinMo. But there’s enough market space for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android to happily coexist together.

9. Palm continues to push out mobile devices with little demand.

Ugh. I hate to say this, but this will probably happen.

I still have my fingers crossed though. Palm always had horrible hardware; webOS is a beauty. Hopefully someone there can realize that in time.

But, sadly, knowing their history, they probably wont.

10. Square realizes its bottleneck is additional hardware, so it gives card reader away for free.

Interesting.

I remember PayPal facing a similar decision a loooong time ago.

Acquisitions

11. DropBox gets acquired.

Okay, but for how much and to whom?

12. GitHub gets acquired.

Again, sure…but value and buyer are really important.

13. “Spray and pray” investment model becomes validated as a few players have significant exists.

Let’s hope so.

Geo
14. Facebook will not enter the geo space in 2010. If it does, it won’t be through an acquisition.

I feel like Twitter is more poised to make this move.

15. Foursquare has breakout year. Gowalla grows but is labeled “cute”.

Browsers / Software
16. Firefox hits peak in 2010 and will slowly be replaced by faster browsers.

Agree. Firefox has done a lot. After giving it all it had, it led to the release of Chrome.

17. Google Chrome hits double digit market share as extensions and mac availability catapult adoption.

Let’s just hope IE dies a similar death to WinMo.

18. Jolicloud project does not gain significant traction as Chrome OS steals its thunder.

Eh. Keep in mind that Chrome OS is a very limited system. It’s great but not for every role. Again, I feel like there’s plenty of space for both to be there. They do serve two very different roles.

19. Rockment, despite the prowess of its investors, does not gain significant traction as its competition can leverage significant real-estate space.

Haha, I haven’t heard of it. Doesn’t this just strengthen your point?

20. Adobe CS5 makes biggest splash in the “Objective-C is hard, here’s another way to make iPhone applications” space.

I haven’t heard of this either, but this is huge if it happens.

Web Services

21. MySpace moves away from being an identity hub, integrates FaceBook Connect, strengthens focus on digital media, but sees traffic continue to drop.

…surely.

22. Wave slowly insinuates itself in to your work and personal life after assets and talent from the EtherPad help with interface and performance improvements.

Too far into the future. 2010 is way too soon for anything significant to happen.

23. Twitter releases analytics product for businesses.

I am sick and tired of the seemingly lazy company that does nothing but raise money based on astronomical valuations. I want to see revenue already…and I am not the only one.

They are forced to do this. They have no other choice.

24. Twitter continues to grow, but not at the same rate it did in 2009.

I feel like user signups might stagnate…but business accounts should boom, especially if Twitter decides to focus on them and give them additional resources.

25. Tumblr more than doubles traffic and breaks in to Alexa top 150.

26. Facebook introduces redesign, users protest, Facebook doesn’t do anything about it.

lol

27. Facebook makes major push to get people to organize friends in to lists.

28. Facebook Connect moves closer to being De facto login.

Definitely. Will strongly compete with Google.

Search

29. News Corp continues to threaten removing itself from Google’s index, but it wont.

As much fun as it is making fun of Rupert, he does have a point and has done a lot. Hulu and Fox have truly been innovators and everyone knows that something innovative needs to happen before the much-needed news industry falls over.

30. Bing beats Google to integrating innovative features.

Google falls asleep on the wheel. I really want to compare it to Yahoo! but I wont. I just wont. I refuse to do so.

I just love Google too much to make that claim. But…I easily can if I try.

31. Bing passes 15 percent search market share.

I feel like 15% is too low. I feel it will be higher, especially with the Yahoo! search deal.

Tech Trends

32. “Netscape IPO moment” begins tech IPO eruption.

Oh yea! And boy, am I excited.

33. Founders Visa movement generates a lot of talk, but unfortunately no action.

I am slightly more optimistic.

34. Augmented Reality shows a few cool use cases, but has slow consumer adoption.

Yup, still really far into the future.

35. The online music website “convection oven” pattern continues.

Music is hard and because of the technologically retarded music labels it will largely stay the same.

36. Privacy and data integrity issues force enterprise customers towards “private cloud” solutions.

Which is great for them.

37. CPA offer providers will try to appear to be consumer friendly, but will continue to do use shady tactics to make money.

Regular CPC advertisements can be so extremely shady on their own. How many ducks can you shoot? I feel like advertisments themselves are a shady industry and CPA are the most shady.

Nothing will change here.

38. Aol.’s rebranding efforts don’t have desired effect by turning the company around.

I still can’t believe they chose a goldfish with white font as their logo. Makes me feel just great about their rebranding.

I will compare this to Yahoo. Slow death and decline. Goodbye AOL, we will not miss you.

39. Microsoft’s online Office products fail to win any fanatics.

Microsoft has a few great stars online. Bing is the flagship product online. Office online is and will always remain a failed product.

Google has already created and established themselves strongly within this industry.

40. HTML5 video support has slow adoption as most large vendors find flash good enough for now.

Yup. We’re still years away.

I dream of a world where HTML5 and Chrome-esque browsers replace gargantuan ancient services like Flash and IE. It will happen.

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