Back in January I made 10 predictions for Digital Media for 2010. Being open and transparent, how did these predictions fair over the year?

1. Reinvestment in Digital Media.
   2010 was a great year for agencies. We have implemented a number of very large websites, both brand new brands and existing ones. In terms of reinvestment, clients are now looking into cloud computing and full disaster recovery.
   Prediction rating: 10/10
2. Lack of new products due to R&D being slashed in 2009.
   Looking back at new applications and products – what was released that made a big impact? The iPad (at the beginning of the year before being launched it was referred to as the iSlate). I predicted that the end of the year would see some launches, and Kinect was released in November. Before you start commenting that 2010 was the year of 3D TV, they were in fact launched in 2009.
   Prediction rating: 10/10 

3. A number of live events on YouTube.
   Well, in September they launched live streaming. However I doubt most people really noticed. I’ll knock some points off because I said “live is where the value is”.
   Prediction rating: 8/10

4. More Flex applications, less Silverlight.
   Hmmm – more site are using Flex (BBC iPlayer download for example). HTML 5 changed the landscape significantly, and due to the ongoing spat between Apple and Adobe, agencies are nervous about any single vendor, and will move to the latest version of HTML instead.
   Prediction rating: 3/10 

5. SecondLife to further decline.
   

   Second-what? The LindenX has just flattened out for the last couple of years – which means no more money is coming into the platform.
   Prediction rating: 9/10

6. The UK to start accepting blogging at the same status as the US.
   Absolutely. UK news programmes now interview blogging experts for their views and opinions. Blogs are quoted in the press (errr, but so is Twitter, so maybe it’s just reporters’ laziness).
   Prediction rating: 10/10

7. Offline browsers make a comeback.
   Perhaps 12 months ahead of it’s time, this prediction didn’t materialise. Before you think there is a gap in the market, we have been approached by a number of vendors in this space.
   Prediction rating: 2/10

8. The FIFA World Cup sees huge use of video over mobile & broadband.
   It’s easy to forget the World Cup this year. If you were streaming it though, your view of the summer was probably very different to England supporters. Internet traffic reached a record peak (of almost 1Tb/sec) due to video over mobile and broadband. 
   Prediction rating: 10/10

9. Expect ebooks to take off.
   Ebooks have exceeded all expectations for booksellers, so I was correct there. However magazines, sports programmes and other paper publications have been slow to move to ebooks, mainly because Amazon and other ebook retailers want such a high slice of the revenue. So if you’re a football club that sells a programme for £3 or £4, you really don’t want a new middleman taking 20-30% of your revenue to sell the book electronically.
   Prediction rating: 5/10

10. 2010… the year of Web CRM
    There is still a major opportunity for a cloud based platform with efficient pricing. I do not understand why there isn’t a white label SSO platform out there. Let me know if you can recommend one.
    Prediction rating: 0/10

Pretty good going overall. Any more accurate and I’d be an octopus.

I’ll post an article on 2011 predictions next week.

Photo courtesy of Shine 2010 – 2010 World Cup good news.