As I do every year, I made a bunch of (primarily tech) prognostications last year.

Before I do my look ahead at 2007, let’s look back and see how I did on my prognostications for 2006:

• Google, Google Everywhere: Along with this, I said I expected Google to roll out one huge project. OK, it was a Google everywhere year (doing deal with NASA for picture storage/search, buying the old NASA complex in Mountain View, CA, continuing with the book project etc). The big project rolled out was actually Google’s purchase of YouTube, which – while a defensive move – still validates that business model (yes, that model still isn’t defined yet, agreed). So I got this one.
• Another Bad Year for Security: Between companies/the government spilling personal information and the crack attempts moving from script kiddies to more sophisticated criminal enterprises, this was a bad year for security.
• Another solid year for Apple: Remember the Zune, Microsoft’s iPod killer? No? I’m sure you passed by a whole aisle of them at every store you’ve been in recently. Apple continues its dominance of the music download/portable player markets, and is making slow inroads into the desktop. Again, I got this one right.
• Privacy concerns grow: Terrorism watch lists, warrentless wiretapping, stolen laptops and so on. More was discovered this year about the existence of various programs designed to allegedly keep us safer, but I don’t feel safer. I just feel violated. Maybe Scott McNeally was right when he said something to the effect of “You have no privacy; get over it,” but it’s not a pleasant realization. Got this right.
• Web Services Gain Focus: They didn’t. Web services, for the most part, as right where they were at the end of 2005. More companies – such as Yahoo and Google – are developing APIs and so on, but – for the most part – the whole Web 2.0 (whatever the fuck that means) space is still essentially empty space, mainly filled with hype and vaporware. I was wrong on this one.
• Bold Prediction: Microsoft Vista will be released this year: Hey, you usually can’t lose by betting against Microsoft’s timetables, but I took a chance, and the Business Edition of Vista did hit the mark in November. Not the home version(s), but MS still (barely) made it. I got this one.
• Online Advertising Will Continue to Kill Traditional Advertising: Sure, like shooting fish in a barrel. But this year, basically everyone – including the advertisers and traditional advertising vehicles (radio, TV, newspapers) picked their collective heads out of the sand and made some small steps to join the 21st Century. Nailed this one.
• Intellectual Property Rights Will be Hot Issue: While the whole SCO debacle is the poster child for IP issues, there was more press coverage this year that basically said – in relation to many threatened/litigated IP cases – that IP and copyright issues are, as a matter of fact, a big problem. And copyright in software is especially problematic. Yes, right again.
• Another Internet Growth Year: I put this in the context of capital moving into internet projects, and this was the case. Just look at the buzz around Google’s $1.65 BILLION purchase of YouTube, Rocketboom’s former anchor’s, Amanda Congdon, segue into mainstream media or the different sites/business plans that revolve around delivering content – new, music, video and so on – over the internet. You know, these internets might just catch on. Another on-the-money guess.
• People Hang Up on Dial-Up: I would not want to be in the dial-up business today. Hey, when’s the last time you got an AOL disc in the mail???? I think, for the most part, the only people with dial-up are those who can’t get any kind of broadband and have no access to the internet from work. Because if you work, most businesses have broadband access. So drop AOL, set up a Yahoo Mail or Gmail account and check it at work. Dial-up is, essentially, dead.
• Blu-Ray Wins over HD-DVD: The jury is still out on this one for two reasons: The late entry of Blu-ray, and because both formats are so young that there is no clear winner. I thought Sony’s introduction of the PS3 would tip the tables, but Sony seems to be going out of its way to shoot itself in the foot. Late to market, in short supply, getting its butt kicked by Nintendo’s (much cheaper/more innovative) Wii. I’ll call this one too early to call, but I was incorrect in thinking there would be a winner by the end of the year.
• Digital Cameras Improve: I was right in both things I said about digital cameras: 1) They will improve in quality (yes); 2) They will still remain so hard to use that only the geeks/persistent will be able to discover all they can do.
• Linux Will NOT Make Significant Inroads on the Desktop: This is correct.

While I did pick a lot of obvious areas to comment on, I still got 11 correct, one wrong and a too-early-to-tell on one.

Not too bad; it’s going to be hard to top that this year.

Nothing particularly new here in this Learn Out Loud article, but it’s a nice clean list that pretty much spells out – in non-techie terms – why DRM is, to be generous, flawed.

Read, learn, post pointers to the entry.

WATCHING:
Thank You for Smoking
Jason Reitman, director

Highly entertaining, spot-on movie about the lobbying industry and how it spins issues.

Aaron Eckhart plays the head spokesman for Big Tobacco, and he plays it so well you almost root for him. The scenes with his son are painfully accurate, such as when he explains to his son that he (Eckhart’s character) doesn’t have to be right, he only has to show that other side to be wrong. That means, for the argument, that he is right.

Well done, nicely tongue-in-cheek without going over the top. Enjoyable, but it makes you think, at the same time.

All movies

I don’t know, maybe it’s the time of the year (post-election, in the holiday season), but the blogosphere has gone relatively quiet.

I’ve actually been noticing this for some months now, on very disparate sites:

• Kottke.org – Ever since Kottke gave up the whole “get paid for blogging” experiment (disclosure: I contributed to his fund) and got married, his posts have been fewer and more of a linkage nature, rather than even a line or two saying why this link is cool.
• Jeremy Zawodny – My favorite Yahoo blogger, his posts have been fewer and fewer over the last few months (though in the last few days more posts).
• Billmon.org – A left-wing commentator with a vast grasp of politics and history; he has posted sparsely since the election – and there is still plenty to comment on vis-a-vi Iraq, Pelosi and so on.

Those are just some examples of what I’m seeing all over.

My own blog has not been updated very often the last few months, either, but that’s really not something anyone would really care about, you know?

So – the question is: Has blogging lost its luster?.

Have we all moved on to the next hot thing? (Whatever that may be – mySpace, Web 2.0, going back to actual work instead of writing about work?

I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve been noticing…

Microsoft embraces Linux.

Jeepers, Batman…

I guess resistance was futile.

William Styron has died.

To me, Styron was one of the most compelling writers of the late 20th Century. He wrote brilliant fiction (Sophie’s Choice, one of my favorite novels), as well as painfully insightful non-fiction, such as Darkness Visible, where he discusses his battle with depression.

Along with Philip Roth, Joseph Heller and John Updike (and others), Styron is a contemporary giant whose voice will be missed.

As Tim Bray (I believe) correctly points out, it appears that Zdnet’s David Berlind is the first one to really address this scary issue.

Even Groklaw, which should be all over this one, is silent on this issue.

This issue is far-reaching: IBM is suing Amazon for patent infringement, and the patents – to me, not a lawyer – appear to cover almost all forms of e-commerce, from ads to online catalogs.

Take a step back, and you’ll see that if IBM is successful against Amazon (not a given, obviously), IBM can require licenses for just about any site that displays ads/sells product.

That’s scary.

So what’s really going on here? IBM has championed open-source software (OSS), and – as the patent leader in the software industry – has “donated” hundreds of patents to the public, pledging to never enforce them so the internet can flourish without worries that come up from SCO nuisance suits.

The suit against Amazon – while it could lead to a pot ‘o gold (and IBM is a for-profit business) – seems at odds with what it’s been doing over the past few years re:patents and OSS.

I think this action by IBM is a shot across the bow to Amazon regarding Amazon’s ridiculous 1-Click patent (even iTunes has to license this so-called technology).

To me, it’s IBM’s way of telling Amazon to either: 1) Donate the patent to the public, or 2) At the very least, don’t pull any shit like this in the future.

Why do I think this?

• As I mentioned, this patent nonsense is not in keeping with IBM’s recent behavior, so it’s suspect.
• IBM has more to lose by winning this battle than by keeping Amazon in check. IBM is services and hardware/software – the more people who use it, the better. If Amazon keeps forcing licensing to the 1-Click (or other obvious patents), the barrier to entry will be higher. So IBM will sell less services and product. Ditto if IBM wins and erects toll booths.
• If they win – and it’ll cost a bit to get there – they really can’t afford to go after too many deep pockets, because – again – it’ll put a chill on the industry and, again, IBM’s sales will take a hit.
• IBM is years deep in its defense against SCO’s charges of some sort of Linux tampering (alleged tampering varies by the day almost). From the beginning, SCO’s attempt to, essentially, put a toll booth on Linux has cost the Utah-based company dearly in a public relations manner (and other ways, was well); IBM has gained a lot of respect and kudos for not backing down to these ridiculous charges and fighting to keep Linux open and free. It well understands the PR firestorm toll booths could potentially create.

There is one dark horse in this battle: Let’s assume IBM goes ahead with the litigation, wins, and it turns out IBM’s patents are prior art that nullify Amazon’s 1-Click patent.

What happens then? Amazon takes a huge hit, as all the licensing fees for the patent are gone (retroactively?), and IBM puts the patent in the public, so they can sell more services, hardware and software.

I don’t think IBM is going after Amazon to really set up toll booths on the internet, as Berlind has postulated.

They are trying – in one way or another – to make sure no toll booths exist, so the company can keep making money on everything else.

Remember – In business, sometimes it’s better to have something and make no money off it than to have a competitor have same and they’re making money off it (or has the potential to, somehow, monetize it).

I think this is one of the major reasons Google purchased YouTube: So no one else could.

Think about that.

I host this site at Concentric; this was my first domain, and I’ve not moved the site in the 10 or so years I’ve had it at Concentric.

However, Concentric has screwed me twice now:

• They lowered the price and increased the benefits of my package without notifying me. When I called, they told me they would only give the better deal (on existing package) to people who called. I.e., who called them on it.
• This week, I saw my disk space was getting tight – for me – so I checked to see what more disk space would cost. I did this through my admin account. When I did the same just logging in to the Concentric.net page, it was…different. My plan offers 250M of disk space. My plan – as currently offered on the Concentric page – offers 2,000M of disk space for same cost.

I called up and (after a little discussion) was switched to the (same) plan so I got more disk space, at no additional cost.

Two strikes against Concentric.

Hell, I was shopping around to see if I could move the domain so I could get more stuff, mainly disk space. They could have lost me (and my $XX/mo) because they didn’t tell me I actually could have more disk space. Why wouldn’t they trumpet this? Disk space is cheap; sent out an e-mail saying how Concentric is improving your life, instead of me writing about how, basically, I feel Concentric has screwed me over and could have lost me?

But I’ve never been a marketing guy. I see the other side of the coin, but I just don’t “get” the obverse.

I’ve installed the Firefox 2.0 browser on both my Windows XP and 2000 boxes; seamless install. (Yep – early adopter – 2.0 update came this PM)

And it looks better. I’ll have to see – over the next few days – if it’s better other than graphically.

But a nice update. No pain, and THAT’s a good (unusual) thing.

WATCHING:
About a Boy
Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz, directors

A Hugh Grant vehicle in which Grant plays the character he always plays: The boorish, self-centered womanizing cad.

But it’s way more than that. At times just a comedy, it’s also filled with pathos, insights into “how did we get here and why?” and what relationships mean.

It’s about, on many levels, the human conditions.

Understated, very funny and with great performances all around, About a Boy is difficult to classify but enjoyable to watch. It’s based on a book by Nick Hornby, who also wrote the John Cusack vehicle, High Fidelity.

Music, by Badly Drawn Boy, works extremely well with the movie.

All movies

One of the things I really enjoy doing (duh!) is web work.

However, with my job doing the same, my work on my various personal sites has, well, suffered.

As in, I have not done a damn thing with any of them over the last year or two.

I just renewed the domain name for one of my sites (geistlinger.com) – I’ve been wanting to move this domain to a Linux platform for over a year, but I just don’t have the time to recode the site from Cold Fusion to whatever language I pick (PHP, I’m sure, to start).

Frustrating.

And, back in April(!), I picked up a new domain that I’ve wanted for some time to use as a wild experimentation site.

Still nothing there.

*Sigh*

One of these fine days…

On the plus side, many of the tools I’ve written over the last few years still power large parts of these sites, silently and consistently updating various sites with RSS feeds, review and gallery updates.

That’s way cool.

I just want to do more, dammit!

I’ve pointed out how my upgrade from iTunes 6.x to 7.0 was a complete disaster, but Apple did come out with a patch (7.0.1) that has resolved all the issues I had.

This has created a lot of ill-will towards Apple, however. This is how Microsoft handles upgrades. You always wait for the service patch.