I already made 10 predictions for 2006, all related to blogging. Here's 10 that are related to the rest of tech and other matters. I know it's off-topic, but what-the-hell. It's almost New Year's Eve.
1. By the end of the year, IPOs will once again be considered a desirable and realistic option for venture-backed startups. However, they will need three consecutively profitable fiscal quarters before the market will be optimistic about them in the public sector.
2. Yahoo's stock will perform better by percentage than Google's. In fact, Google stock will tumble for a brief violent period before recovering. John Battelle already made that prediction, but I want to be on record as saying "I knew that," before it actually happens.
3. There will be a serious and widely supported move to impeach George Bush. It will fail to carry. However, Republicans will gallop toward the political center, competing with each other to disavow they were now nor had they ever been supporters of his administration.
4. Dell will fall to third place or lower in personal computer sales. It will pull out of the low-end consumer market.
5. Ray Ozzie's position at Microsoft will be elevated. There will be serious editorial discussion of him taking the reins of the company. Entrenched, powerful, longterm entities will do their very best to erode his position.
6. The Boston Red Sox will resurge to win the World Series, overcoming a 23-game deficit at the All Star break.
7. The residents of a smaller, more determined New Orleans will spawn the sort of building boom that citizens of San Francisco spawned after the great quake. It will lead to a financial boom. Government will have had almost nothing to do with it, but will take a great deal of credit for it.
8. Using the Channel 9 model, corporate video blogging will emerge in popularity, but n one will even dust the tail of the original.
9. The technology issue most discussed will no longer be the blog, but open source and its impact or disappointment on technology development o all levels everywhere.
10. After DNA evidence reveals that a few more convicts, executed for murder, were innocent, American states will to put moratoriums on capital punishment.
