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Google Reader for Generation (Nintendo) Wii -- 2028 A.D.

I really like the changes Google Reader has made over the past year, but what will Google Reader look like in the year 2028 A.D.?  And what innovations will be particularly interesting to Generation Wii - which can loosely be defined as those being born in year 2000 or later?

I can easily see a Minority Report type interface.  Geoscopic motion sensors certainly be in the picture.  Perhaps a person will wear a glove so that computers will be able to interpret more input signals.  Or perhaps motion scanners will do the same job so that no sweaty/stinky glove is required.  Just imagine:

• Making a scratching motion with your fingers to scroll down
• Making an emphatic motion with your fingers to bring up an input box
• Speaking your response which will then be converted into multiple streams, including voice, text and the same in multiple other languages

Fun stuff.  But will it really be Google?  And if it is Google, will it still be called Google Reader?  If not Google, who will it be?

About Mashable's Predictions for 2008

It's so easy just to sit back and comment on others' predictions.  Here are my comments about predictions for 2008 made by Mark Hopkins of Mashable.

I like the prediction that Google is more likely to succeed than Facebook:
My money’s on Google accomplishing their goal of being a legitimate cloudware operating system

Next, I appreciate the comments about APML:
Attentioning is a meme that’s gaining steam this year. Next year, it’s going to be the new “social graph.” Attentioning is not only a neat new buzzword and a way for the user to take back control of their privacy, but a way for behavioral targeting to really take hold. If you haven’t read up on it yet, this is something you truly need to pay attention to. Open has been the clear winner in the buzzword contest for at least the last half of 2007. APML and the attentioning movement will gain steam next year, as they don’t just use Open as a buzzword, but as a philosophy.

APML and it's cousins like automated recommendations are game changers because they are all about making the online experience more relevant.  What can be more meaningful than that!

Comments on ReadWriteWeb's Predictions for 2008

I'm sitting back catching up on some The Office and wanted to comment on ReadWriteWeb's predictions for 2008.  First, thanks for putting all these predictions together.  This will make for some interesting comparisons in December 2008.

On that note, I've put the authors in order of which ones I agree with most.  I think Alex Iskold is right on with his predictions and think Emre Sokullu will be most wrong:

1. Alex Iskold
2. Richard MacManus
3. Charles Knight
4. Sean Ammirati
5. Josh Catone
6. Marshall Kirkpatrick
7. Emre Sokullu

My favorite:  I agree with everything Alex Iskold projected for 2008, especially implicit assumptions (which I tend to call "automated recommendations"):

• 2008 will be slow and cautious, with the first half dominated by recession or fear of recession.
• Facebook is going to see the same kind of decline in popularity in 2008 that MySpace saw in 2007.
• Digg is going to be acquired by one of the mainstream media conglomerates.
• Implicit applications, which monitor our habits and automatically infer our likes, will rise.

I found the following predictions of Richard MacManus to be interesting and very reasonable:

• Zoho and/or ThinkFree will be acquired by big companies wanting to leapfrog into the Web Office space.
• The most interesting innovations on the Web in 2008 won't happen in Silicon Valley, but in Asia (China, Japan, Korea). At least one startup from China will break through in the US market with Twitter-like success in 2008 - and it will almost certainly be a Mobile Web app.

Charles Knight (who also runs AltSearchEngines) is predicting opportunities for alternate search engines (ie, other than Google).  I agree that there are opportunities here, that the world is big and that success is possible, but think it will be hard to top Google.  They just came along at the right time and it will be hard to topple their Google's $208 billion valuation and $13 billion in cash.  For more on Charles' predictions, visit "Search 2008 A little less talk and a lot more action".

• In the 1st Q 2008, the true "Google Killer" in search will be in Stealth Mode. In 2nd Q 2008 the first prototype will begin in closed Alpha mode. In 3rd Q 2008 it will be ready for the final closed Beta testing. In 4th Q 2008 it will launch and "Rock and Shock" the world!

I mostly agree with Sean Ammirati, but have a minor disagreement about Google looking vulnerable.  Google is indeed a one trick pony, but that's a pony valued at more than $200 billion!

• Google will really start looking vulnerable in 2008. While the 'one trick pony' comment by Steve Ballmer drew sarcastic responses, this will begin to look prophetic.
• Facebook will start to feel pressure from two trends that will emerge on the web: distributed social networks and distributed commerce systems. For distributed commerce systems, look to see a first proof of concept from the VRM project. Chris Messina's diso project with Wordpress will be a great proof of concept for distributed social neworks.

Overall, I tend to disagree with Josh Catone.  Facebook will grow but, in my mind, they are worth no more than $5 billion while Google has more than twice that in cash (and is worth more than $200 billion). I agree that the mobile web will be a bit story, but more so in 2009 and 2010 than 2008.   Finally, I don't get how ABC/CBS/NBC will make people want to use Google Docs.

• Facebook will continue to grow and their platform will be adopted by other large social networks. Google will sweat.
• Mobile web usage will be a big story in 2008. It's already big in many parts of the world; and Westerners are about to get hooked. With new mobile devices that makes web surfing less painful, people will be more and more connected away from their computers.
• Mainstream media coverage will be a catalyst for the adoption of Web Office apps by consumers.

Marshall Kirkpatrick said some very vague things, so it's hard to agree or disagree strongly.

Least favorite - I disagree with everything that Emre Sokullu said.  Facebook is just a social network for college people.  Google is going "social" and OpenSocial is just one tactic in a much broader strategy.  While Microsoft and Facebook might try to acquire startups, don't forget that most companies would prefer to be bought by Google.  Oh, and aggressive is spelled incorrectly.

• Facebook will acquire companies that do the following, in order to strengthen their advertising unit: personalization, behavior tracking, image recognition
• Facebook will release a browser.
• Google OpenSocial will be a failure.
• Microsoft will become more aggresive and buy many popular companies at once.

Predictions on Google (published in 2002) and the Semantic Web

Here's a forward-thinking essay written about Google called "August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and eBay to the Semantic Web".  The essay was written in 2002 and predicts what Google will look like in 2009.  The article was obviously written before created AdSense (2003) and obviously before Google went public (2004).  While the author predicts Google's use of semantic processing, I can assure you that the article was written before Google bought Applied Semantics (2003).

The following prediction is an exact match for Google's launch of Google Base earlier this week.

Google Marketplace Manager:  The Marketplace Manager, or MM, looked like a regular spreadsheet and allowed you to list information about yourself, what you wanted to sell, what you wanted to buy, and so forth. MM was essentially an “logical statement editor,” disguised as a spreadsheet. People entered their names, addresses, and other relevant information about themselves, then they entered what they were selling, and MM saved RDF-formatted files to the server of their choice - and sent a “ping” to Google which told the search engine to update their index.

Next, here's a prediction for that turned out to be true and is now known as Google Alerts.

Google Personal Agent:  Now, search is not enough. You need service. You need the computer to help you. So Google also rolled out the Personal Agent - a small piece of software that, in essence, simply queried Google on a regular basis and sent you email when it found what you were looking for on the Semweb.

Great article.  But the Google hasn't displaced eBay as the world's leading marketplace and Amazon is still around, although they recently announced a drop in earnings.  To be fair, the article made predictions about Google in 2009 and Google has plenty of time to put their talent and billions in cash to good work.

For other interesting predictions on Google, check out:

Google's Future? GBrowser, GooglePC, Google NetPC and Google ISP

Looking back on Google predictions made in May 2005

Global implications of the $50 PC

EPIC 2014

Interestingly, IMHO, EPIC 2014 was written just this year and is less accurate in terms of Google predictions than the 2002 essay described above.  I don't think Google will buy Amazon.com.  What seems more likely is that Google may be able to earn service revenue in the future by helping companies like Amazon make better use of their user data.  In any case, EPIC 2014 is a slick Shockwave movie showing that Google is cool.

The future of the internet (the next 10 years)

Here's an interesting article from Forbes about the future of the internet (the next 10 years).  The best thing about the article is that it gives a decent look backwards to 1994, but think it fails to deliver on any real future of the internet.  Here are two articles we've written on the future of the internet:  Google's Future? GBrowser, GooglePC, Google NetPC and Google ISP and Global implications of the $50 PC.

The best thing about the Forbes article is a link to a Forbes guest column ("Vint Cerf On How The Internet Changed Communication") written by Vint Cerf who many say is the "Father of the Internet" and is currently the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google.  In a nutshell, Vint says that the internet delivers on being a massive 2-way communication device where the communication is not limited to just 2 people.  Here are some excerpts:

We're seeing cooperative, collaborative tools emerging out of this maelstrom of e-mail, instant messaging, network news groups, RSS feeds, group videogames and other collaborative interactions.

I'm sure that this is going to get richer over time, and we probably can't predict how it will all turn out. If you want to know where it's going, you should be talking to 13-year-olds, because they're the ones who quickly adopt new tools like text messaging and instant messaging. They think of e-mail as passé. You know, "How 20th century! E-mail? Why would you do that? It's not instant. I want immediate reactions from my friends."