Track Record of Our Predictions for 2018

Each year, before issuing a set for predictions for the upcoming year, we evaluate how we did with regard to the predictions we made for the current year. Without further ado, here are the results for our 2018 predictions.

1. Expect to hear about “the retailpocalypse" as a key consumer sector tries to fight Amazonification. Retailpocalypse probably was included in more headlines in 2018 than Amaxonification but pretty much any news story about the retail sector mentioned Amazon. It was a tough year for the sector, with two to three thousand locations closing, and 125-year-old Sears declaring bankruptcy in Q3. Unfortunately, we expect the brick-and-mortar stores to continue to have a tough time of it even as Amazon opens more retail locations. While the bad news for retail has been covered, did not capture the attention of consumers as much as we had expected. We expect that Amazonification will capture more attention in 2019, and the downward cycle continues, and expect calls for “doing something” to protect failing retail. Grade: A.
2. People will be more anxious and angry. We called this era the Age of Anxiety and Anger, and we got this right. In 2018, we saw lots of anger, much of it political, and lots of anxiety. There were many more references to people needing to take a break from their devices’ notifications. As of Oct., we expect more anger after the midterms — however things turn out — that will carry over into 2019 and people start focusing on the 2020 election cycle. We also expect that people will continue to be more anxious — whether due to politics or not — and that there will be more articles about how to de-stress. From a marketing perspective, look for some consumer brands to try to tap into the need to de-stress.  Grade: A.
3. There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter. We got this totally right, particularly when we said, “Expect Congress to continue to hold hearings on the subject – just don’t expect any agreement on the answers before 2018’s midterm elections.” With concerns about disinformation campaigns and data breaches, and claims of censorship-by-algorithm, expect this debate to continue past the 2020 election cycle. Grade: A+.
4. The labor shortage and the gig economy will spark think-pieces about the nature of work. The labor shortage and the gig economy did get some coverage but we didn’t see as many think-pieces as we expected. However, there were think-pieces about the potential impact on jobs that robots will have on the nature of work. We expect more coverage of the impact of robots on jobs in 2019, along with calls to better track and understand the gig economy’s impact on the economy at large. Because we expected more essays about the labor shortage than we saw, we will reflect that in our grade. Grade: B+.
5. Conversations about gender, sexuality and sexual harassment have changed – at least in the media. This was definitely true in 2018. We continued to see a big divide, and lots of anger, and unfortunately, both will continue next year. Grade: A.

Look for our predictions for 2019 before Christmas.

Meanwhile, tell us what you think. 

More Doom & Gloom from the Retailpocalypse

We've been focused on the "Retailpocalypse" for about a year now because we feel so many sectors are affected, including real estate (when stores close and locations may or may not find new tenants), hiring (when tens or hundreds of employees lose their jobs), and local media (who had been relying on ads from those local retailers). 

We came to this topic by way of the impact on local media, which is directly relevant to our business.

Unfortunately, while there are new stores launching each year, and other retailers may be expanding, there seem to be more retailers shutting down locations or declaring bankruptcy. The latest is Sears, the 125-year-old retail pioneer, which on Monday filed for bankruptcy and said it will close 142 more stores. That's on top of the 46 locations it announced it was closing back in August.

The company, which also owns Kmart, will have 687 Sears and Kmart locations remaining. The company owed $134 million of debt that it could not pay.

At its height, Sears was the known as the "the everything store" and was the largest retailer in the U.S. In 2006, it had 355,000 employees; today, it has fewer than 140,000 employees.

One reason Sears is failing is because of Amazon. It's ironic that Sears, which started as a catalog business, has lost out to Amazon. Amazon is now "the everything store."

For more on Sears' legacy, check out this NPR story.

The retailpocalypse is not ending anytime soon, and will continue to have a significant trickle-down impact on a range of sectors in the U.S. economy. We don't know if there's a solution exactly, and certainly don't see how government could step in (other than to break up Amazon, which isn't necessarily a good idea). But the health of the retail sector is one that needs to attention paid to it. As we prepare our predictions for trends in 2019, the retailpocalypse will continue to be on our list.

More Problems for Retail

The retail sector is vital to the health of the U.S. economy, and we felt the myriad of problems plaguing the sector would generate more attention in 2018, and unfortunately, we've been see more of those problems in the media.

One of the key issues not getting attention in prior years, we felt, was the impact that store closing would have on the real estate sector. Back in April, Bloomberg Business validated our prediction with an article titled, "The Retail Real Estate Glut Is Getting Worse:  Stores have announced the closing of 77 million square feet of shopping space so far this year."

The article included a chart of the combined square footage lost from store closings going back to 2008, and the trend is bad. In just four months (when the article was published), 2018 has eclipsed full-year results for every year except 2017 and 2008. Keep in mind: 2008 saw a financial collapse of Lehman Brothers and other big finance -- so a significant year. 

And yet. the difference between a full year in 2008 and four months in 2018 us less than 11 million square feet. We're certainly on track to surpass 2008's total and could eclipse 2017, which is only 2.8 million higher than April's losses.

The idea that all stores are going to go away, due to Amazonification, is not likely to happen in the near term. After all, even Amazon, Warby Parker and others have been opening brick-and-mortar store locations. 

That said, the premise that the underlying value of real estate holdings may be more valuable than the retail chain itself may no longer be true -- or no longer true to the same extent, in an era of so-called zombie malls.

The reason: lease values, which are dropping to keep current clients or to entice new ones, are having a downward pressure on the valuation of retail's real estate portfolios. That serves as a disincentive for investors to put less pressure on retail stores to shut shutter more stores.

Another problem, according to the Wall St. Journal: "Retail’s Other Problem: Too Few Clerks in the Store: Macy’s, J.C. Penney and others have cut jobs even more than they have closed stores" Even while operating the same number of stores, Macy's has, according to the Journal, "shed 52,000 workers since 2008."

What that means is if you thought service at retail locations has dropped over the past 10 years, you're actually right! While some of that may reflect new ways consumers shop as well as new store concepts, which are typically smaller or operate with more layers of tech, lower headcount will make it difficult for customers to find a level of service they expect.

“If brick-and-mortar retailers can’t compete on price in an online environment, the only thing that allows them to survive is to provide a positive in-store experience,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of a retail union.

And that may cause more people to abandon other bricks-and-mortar locations, furthering the downward spiral of one of the largest U.S. industries. 

We certainly hope that this doesn't come to pass.  Let us know what you think.

More Validation of Our Prediction of a TechLash

Back in 2017, we predicted that there would be much closer scrutiny of big tech companies in 2018, and we continue to see that every month. Zuckerberg continues to testify every few weeks, whether here in the U.S. or in the E.U.

Here's a Wall St. Journal article,  "In ‘Founder Friendly’ Era, Star Tech Entrepreneurs Grab Power, Huge Pay: Silicon Valley financiers are losing leverage to star entrepreneurs."

While this article doesn't address Congressional oversight, it does put startups under a different spotlight, one that might not have occurred two years ago.

The question for us, as always, is how does this affect how the media covers big tech. Again, we think the media will continue to keep a closer eye on big tech than it used to just two or three years ago.

Conservatives Validate Our Prediction about a Big Tech Backlash, According to the New York Times

We know, a lot of our blog articles this year have been touting that our predictions have come true. While we are planning a number of articles that go beyond acknowledging our predictions have been validated, we do think it provides context when we see how the trends actually hit.

At the end of 2017, we said: 

There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter. The concern is about the power of their algorithms to determine what we see, especially regarding political ads and the veracity of the news delivered to each of us. The three major platforms have not disclosed specifics but have committed to working to increase transparency and prevent completely false and irresponsible content from being perceived as real news. The underlying questions are: "Has big tech gotten too powerful?" and "Can the major players truly clamp down on the false narratives spread on their platform?" and "How can Congress find a way to regulate them to prevent it from happening in the future?" Expect Congress to continue to hold hearings on the subject – just don’t expect any agreement on the answers before 2018’s midterm elections. (Net neutrality, another issue that also involves big tech, will be an additional source of debate and contention.)

We've already seen a lot of media coverage and Congressional hearings about the unchecked power of algorithms, and the havoc they can wreak. (I feel like I'm writing about a supervillain in a Marvel movie.)

We've seen a big tech backlash from the usual sources but now we're seeing it from otherwise free-market conservatives. Check out this New York Times article: "New Foils for the Right: Google and Facebook" (print headline: "Conservatives Find New Foil in Culture Wars: Silicon Valley" -- still not sure why The Times and other outlets don't let you search using the print headline but that's a topic for another blog post).

The article uses a soon-to-released documentary, "The Creepy Line" that looks at possible censorship of right-wing views as part of the ongoing culture wars.

Right now, with the left saying Google, Facebook and Twitter aren't doing to enough to prevent cyberbullying and misinformation and now the right saying those big tech companies are being too aggressive in sidelining views from the right -- big tech is between a rock and a hard place. 

It's hard to fend off attacks from both sides. Do too much, and one side complains. Back off a bit, and the other side now complains.

From our perspective, the real problem is there's never going to be a solution that fully satisfies critics on both sides. It will be a challenge for big tech to head things off with internal tweaks to their algorithms if only because the outside world (us) won't really see the impact of those tweaks. And Congress has shown itself unable to figure out a solution it can impose.

So.

We expect this to be a big issue that doesn't really go away. It certainly won't go away during the build-up to the 2018 midterm elections. And it won't go away Nov. 7, 2018, the day after the midterm elections when cable reporters start talking about the 2020 elections.

Our Prediction about Corporate Boycotts -- by Other Companies -- Has Been Validated

One of our of more important predictions for ongoing trends in 2018 is was no. 11: 

Corporate boycotts & consumer boycotts will continue. These are boycotts by companies in order to demonstrate distance from controversial programs and personalities. We also expect boycotts of companies that are boycotting those controversial people and programs.

We've seen that to continue to be true in 2018, even more so than in 2017 when we first made that prediction.

In the wake of the tragic Parkland shooting, a number of big brand names have broken ties with the NRA. We've also seen a minor backlash to corporate boycotts -- like the reaction in Georgia to canceling a tax credit to Delta, whose HQ is in Georgia. Although Delta says the cancelation of a discount for NRA members was coincidental, Delta is not backing down.

The reason -- and the reason this is significant, as I told two college students who were interviewing me as part of a class project -- is that corporate values are more important than ever, thanks to social media. We expect more from the companies we purchase goods and services from.

That means brands need to look at making statements on controversial political matters -- something they would never have done a decade ago. More than that, they need to find the right tone and expression for that statement. It needs to fit the brand.

While the media worlds, including journalism and public relations -- endure significant upheaval (which includes, notably, a news cycle that churns so fast that stories like a porn star's suit against a U.S. president isn't even the top story), one thing is clear. And it's good news for PR practitioners.

PR has changed a lot over the past decade or so, but brands still need people who can tell stories that help shape brands. The best people positioned to do this are PR people who can tell a story via traditional media and social media (it has to be across both channels).

John Oliver Validates Our BitCoin Prediction & So Does the Wall St. Journal

For our predictions for 2018, we said to expect that bitcoin and blockchain would generate a lot of coverage -- much more than prior years. We said bitcoin and crypto currencies would generate a lot of coverage even though most people won't be investing in them.

That seems to be an accurate assessment.

Just check out two media pieces new this week.

1. Wall St. Journal: Why Blockchain Will Survive, Even If Bitcoin Doesn’t: Latest blockchain applications could bring overdue change to critical, if unsexy, functions in shipping, real estate and…diamonds by Christopher Mims, who writes the "Keywords" weekly tech column.
2. "Cryptocurrencies: Everything You Don't Understand about Money Combined with Everything You Don't Understand about Computers," which appeared on "Last Week Tonight" with John Oliver.

Check out both, they're worthwhile. This is the first time we've noted a trend being validated by John Oliver, whose "Last Week Tonight" is perhaps the funniest of the comedy news programs.

We still feel that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies won't go mainstream in terms of wide ownership or use of them by the general public. But we do think Mims is right that -- once the hype about blockchain subsides -- there is a  blockchain has the potential for surviving and transforming industries.

What do you think? Will blockchain be the next cloud computing, which seems to have had a long-term impact on business? Or is it like Netscape -- a pioneering tech that spawned an industry while failing? Or like Google Glass (cited by John Oliver), an interesting idea that didn't solve a real need for people right now?

Let us know what you think.

5 Top Media Trends for 2018

While our annual trends, published as always in December in the prior year, covers a lot of sectors -- some directly based on client sectors, some based on sectors that interest us -- what interests us most overall are the trends affecting the media.

The media is really the organizing principle for all our trends.

So while we issued our predictions across three different blog articles, they were often based on what we saw as top priority/most important trends as well as ongoing trends that will continue to be relevant in 2018.

In the article, below, which originally appeared Feb. 15, 2018 in CommPro.biz, a dynamic site for communication professionals, I broke out top trends affecting the media. You can read the full article, below, or check it out at the original site at CommPro.biz.

If there’s one thing we’ve all learned over the last few years, it’s that we live in a media-centric world. Love it or hate it or don’t believe it, whether traditional media or social media, the media affects us all, and it is helpful to understand the trends affecting the media.

For nearly two decades, we’ve compiled an annual list of trends based on a wide-ranging review of the media world and interactions with media influencers. Here are our five top media trends.

1. The news cycle will continue to speed up. If you didn’t understand before how it was a curse, we certainly live in interesting times. The news cycle has gotten faster – with news alerts popping on our phones several times an hour. News that would have been significant a few years ago quickly gets pushed aside, and no one wants to miss the latest shocker. Regardless of political views, people are finding this exhausting. Even late-night comedians are complaining.
2. People will be more anxious and angry. The constant barrage of news, along with the need to comment or read others’ comments, is turning this into the Age of Anxiety and Anger. Another cause: screen addiction and the expectation of needing to be connected 24/7 to our online communities – so you never have to feel alone – but it actually leaves most of us feeling more empty, worried and angry than before, even if factoring out politics. We anticipate more coverage on stress, anxiety, mental health and ways to de-stress, which includes taking a break from your device – aka a technology cleanse or digital detox – which is healthy and a good idea but may be impossible.
3. 2018 will be tough for traditional and online media.  News consumption has increased, but not enough of us want to pay for the news. Great reporting takes effort and lots of resources but sharing news on social media doesn’t help pay for reporting. So traditional and even online media need to develop new advertising and subscription-based business models. Another thing that will affect the media landscape: if either or both of the AT&T-Time Warner and Sinclair Broadcasting-Tribune Media deals get approved.
4. Fake news won’t fade in 2018. If we can’t even agree on a definition of fake news, it will be impossible for Facebook, Google and Twitter to design algorithms and for Congress to enact regulations to stop fake news. (What’s sad: It’s still easier and more lucrative to generate totally fake news than it is to produce real, fact-based news.)
5. Cord cutters won’t save money or money. At some point, cord cutters may realize they’re not really saving money they still need to pay for internet access while also paying for a slew of must-have streaming services. Worse, accessing all those different streaming services on your TV (remember those?) is still more clunky and time-consuming than using a cable box to find the movie or TV show you want.

Unfortunately, these trends are likely to continue unchanged into the future. But, as we’re all impacted by the media, it’s important to understand how they – and we – are being affected.

8 Boston-Based Trends for 2018

For CommPro.biz, a dynamic B2B publisher serving communications professionals, I wrote three articles this year on trends.

The first, originally printed on Feb. 7, 2018, looks at Boston-based trends. The article is available below and on the CommPro.biz site.

Although we live in a hyper-interconnected world, it’s easy to overlook regional differences. Even national trends play out differently, depending on your location, its economy, culture and resources.

With that in mind, while we’ve issued national predictions annually for nearly two decades, we decided this year also to look at how those national trends will play out in Boston – because that’s where we’re based but also because it is a hub for marketing and technology. Below are eight localized trends that we think will affect Boston this year.

1. The “retailpocalypse” will to continue hit Massachusetts. Stores like Macy’s, Sears, Kmart, Gymboree and others have either closed or will close locations within the state. Those most affected: employees, landlords, and newspapers (since shuttered retailers stop buying local ads). Those least affected: customers, most who will just buy online – which is why these stores are closing anyway.
2. The media landscape is changing. Big media consolidation (i.e., Disney acquiring parts of Fox, AT&T’s deal to acquire Time Warner, and Sinclair’s of Tribune Media) typically results in layoffs. But GateHouse’s acquisition of the Boston Herald also will likely dilute its local flavor and personality because current Herald reporters must reapply for their jobs and may be replaced or augmented by current GateHouse reporters. Meanwhile traditional and online media will continue to search for sustainable business models, which, unfortunately, they are unlikely to do in 2018.
3. 2018 will be a good year for artificial intelligence and robotics.Those are strong Boston sectors so we expect positive news from local companies. Primarily A.I. and robotics are helping companies to automate processes whereas, on the consumer side, robots still have a long way to go. Expect continued poaching of small local startups by large outside players.
4. Self-driving cars will continue to be tested …elsewhere. One company currently offers Phoenix-area residents the opportunity to test-ride self-driving cars that don’t have steering wheels or pedals. Just don’t expect Boston to be an early test market. It’s not our over-crowded and cramped former cowpaths-for-roads. The real problem: no one knows if, looking for open parking spots during snow emergencies, sensors in self-driving cars will be able to detect trash cans, traffic cones or folder chairs being used as space savers by local resident (except in the South End).
5. The number of workers in the local gig economy will grow. This trend got a big assist from the new tax law. Because of new benefits slated for owners rather than to employees, some may decide incorporating themselves as a pass-through business is a win-win even if at the same salary. The number of new business starts will be misleading.
6. Amazon won’t select Boston for its HQ2. There are plenty of reasons to move to Boston. We’ve got great colleges, skilled workforce, competitive professional teams but even though we made it to the next round, Amazon won’t select Boston. Why? Our expenses are too high and traffic is too snarled. But it was nice to make it to their short list.
7. Job shortages affect range of fields. People with I. skills are in high demand. The biotech sector, projecting significant growth over the next five years, faces a shortage. Putting more emphasis on STEM education may help but there is a shortage in non-tech fields, too. The lack of caregivers looms large over the next 15 years as Massachusetts projects a 43-percent increase in the number of residents aged 65 and older.
8. Expect turbulence in the nonprofit sector. Under the new tax law, charitable donations are expected to drop. Nonprofits, including colleges, will need to find ways to make sure to engage with and be connected to their donors.

Since localization is important at some point for most organizations, we think it is important to look at how trends interact differently in different markets so that you can anticipate them and develop ways to leverage them on behalf of local employees, customers and partners.

Bloomberg Businessweek Validates Our "Age of Anxiety" Prediction

Add to Bloomberg Businessweek the list that already includes the Wall St. Journal and the New York Times of publications that have validated our prediction that 2018 is the "age of anxiety."

Check out our prediction here but check out, also, this article by Bloomberg Businessweek's Editorial Board: "A New Year's Wish: Better Social Media:Why is everyone hooked on a product that makes them miserable?" (Original print headline: "Social Media Doesn't Have to Be Terrible.")

A key line:

Across Silicon Valley, insiders have lately been raising similar concerns, and fretting that the business model of social media may be undermining the well-being of its users. A growing body of research suggests they have a point.

Even more significant:

Among the young, social media may be playing a role in rising rates of depression and suicide. It seems to induce feelings of envy, anxiety and inadequacy. It appears to reduce self-esteem, inhibit sleep, interfere with schoolwork and (of all the ironies) encourage antisocial behavior. Some two-thirds of kids now say they wouldn't mind if social media didn't exist. And who can blame them? 

The problem is that it's hard to quit.

Welcome to what we’ve called the age of anxiety. The things that we rely on to get through our day, to connect to family, friends, colleagues, and our communities at large are the same things that undermine our sense of self and our happiness.

Worse – many of us recognize that our reliance on our screens and on social media is making us unproductive and unhappy but we can’t break the addiction. And this isn’t just a problem for teens; it’s a problem for everyone.

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Editorial Board suggests that “it’s up to social media business to make its products more humane and less exploitive” but we don’t think they are truly motivated to do so since making it easier to disconnect means taking a hit on their revenue.

Look, we don’t have an answer, either. And we continue to be on social media, too.

Hoping won’t make it so, but as Bloomberg Businessweek’s Editorial Board says about what social media tries to do – bring about human connection – “it’s worth reflecting on how to meet that desire (human connection) – without making everyone miserable in the process.”

Couldn’t agree with that more. Do you have suggestions for how to reduce our anxiety? Let us know.

Boston Globe's "Tech Nomad" Recognizes Screen Addiction + 3 types of solutions that aren't going to work

At some point there may be a backlash to this trend but for the moment, there is a rising recognition that as a society, we are overly dependent on our devices, and that what we're all suffering from is screen addition.

Screen addiction is something we discussed in our predictions for 2018, published in December 2017.

The Boston Globe's "Tech Nomad" columnist, Michael Andor Brodeur, recently wrote about this in a column entitled, "Hard Wired: Our smartphone habits are more like full-blown addictions. So how can we regain control?"

So we consider ourselves validated but that still means we're addicted.

 What's worse, Brodeur suggests that the proliferation of virtual assistants like Alexa presents another opportunity to become addicted to tech. And he's right about that.

So, what to do?

Brodeur cites other industry experts who suggest we should:

• Simply switch your phone to grayscale. By muffling the ways your phone uses contrast, color, and, for lack of better phrasing, sparkly stuff to recruit your attention, the phone becomes less of a dazzling gem to gaze into, and more of a utilitarian brick.

Brodeur also mentions phone-free zones and Yondr, which provides a case in which you place your phone in spaces for artists, educators, organizations, etc. and the case, with a lock, prevents you from temporarily accessing your phone. Seems unnecessary. For all that, you could just agree to turn off your phone.

But the hard part is that so far in the articles we've read about phone addiction, we've come across three types of solutions:

1. Rely on Apple and others to design smartphones that are less addicting.
2. Ask Congress to find a way to regulate big tech to reduce distractions.
3. Identify lifehacks (as in the bullet above) to weaken your addiction.

Of the three, the most likely to happen is #3. But we're open to suggestions. One of us goes on a Facebook hiatus for a week at a time, and combined with the decision to stop checking whenever an alert lights up his phone, finds himself less tense and anxious. But in our business, you can't go cold turkey on news and social media. Which doesn't mean we can't try to break the addiction, just that find ways to scale back and find a better balance.

Suggestions? Send them our way!

Fortune Validates Our Prediction That A Key Retail Story is Amazonification

We don't like the terms, "Amazonification" or " retailpocalypse” but in our predictions for 2018, we felt that a major trend in how reporters cover retail this year would invariably mention the impact Amazon is having on the sector.

Latest example, Fortune magazine's "3 Retail Stocks That Amazon Won't Crush." But check out the original print headline and subhead: "Filing Retail's Empty Spaces: Fundamental changes in the way people shop have driven brick-and-mortar retail stocks down to clearance-sale lows. But the retail chains that survive today's shakeout could pay off big for investors."

Both touch on Amazon and some of the details in our retailpocalypse prediction.

The article does say that "in-store shopping is hardly disappearing -- Forrester Research estimates that 87% of retail sales in 2017 took place in stores," but it continues ominously, "shoppers are shifting their loyalties, seeking out retailers who can compete for their time with low prices and online options in the era of Jeff Bezos's 'everything store.'"

As to which three stores investors should consider, check out the Fortune article itself.

Wall St. Journal's Tech Columnists Validate Our Tech Predictions

On Dec. 14, 2017, we issued a set a trends for 2018 followed by another set of trends the next day and a final set the following week. We touched on a wide range of topics including: retail vs. Amazon, screen addiction, potential for government regulations against big tech, labor shortage, continued conversation about gender issues, a changing media landscape, AI and robotics, bitcoin and cryptocurrency, smart home tech, a shorter news cycle, the continued battle over fake news, cord cutting, VR and AR, IoT (because tech loves acronyms), driverless cars, virtual assistants, and more.

That's not even everything we discussed.

But we're citing those because over at the Wall St. Journal, tech columnist Joanna Stern and Christopher Mims also issued a comprehensive list of predictions for 2018. Their list, published Dec. 27, 2017, "Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2018," includes similar predictions.

Which we say validates the ones we made two weeks earlier.

• We said driverless and electric cars would generate a lot of attention -- because our goal in identifying trends is to figure out the media mindset to help our clients develop stories that matter to reporters they care about -- while Sterns and Mims provided more detail on where driverless cars will go in 2018. They think electric cars will get cheaper, and we hope so.
• They said that Facebook, facing "scrutiny over the fake news," would go back it's roots and "put the 'social' back in social network." We also predicted that Facebook would have to change as a result of the backlash stemming from fake news on Facebook (as well as on Twitter). So glad we're on the same page.
• We talked about Amazonification and Sterns and Mims said, "Amazon Takes Over (Even More)." Again, they dug deeper into the impact -- saying that Amazon will do more with furniture and appliances, office services, pharmacies and supermarkets, and that the company "is on track to employ more than 500,000 people in 2018." We agree with all that. Our take, however, has also addressed the potential huge problem for retail, real estate, employment and small towns if Amazonification really takes hold.
• They said "cryptovurrency feels less cryptic" while we said bitcoin and blockchain, while not mainstream yet (by which we mean: something that everyone has invested in), "finally reaches a point where people who haven’t paid attention at least have heard of the two cryptocurrency terms." 
• They said, "The Net Loses Neutrality" and we asked, "Is the Internet dying?" because ending net neutrality helps Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, among others.
• They said A.I. moves in everywhere and we said A.I. continues to be hot but also that we expect to see articles concerned about a takeover by A.I. 
• They said, "The assault on security and privacy continues," and we agreed, saying, "There's never enough cybersecurity and privacy." Frankly, we preferred our phrasing better but their description of what's happening and steps to take is better than our version. (Of course, they are tech columnists.)

We're pleased one tech prediction article by such insightful tech columnists dovetailed closely with our predictions. It means that our insights into the media world based on these trends can be helpful to current and prospective clients.

Let us know if you have any questions about what these trends could mean for your business. Leave a message on this blog or email us at info@birnbachcom.com. Either way, we'll respond quickly.  

Fortune Validates Our Prediction About Bitcoin

Although bitcoin has been around for a few years, it really wasn't a topic in mainstream conversation. It would get written about but it wasn't receiving daily news coverage.

In our predictions for 2018, we said that would change. We said bitcoin would not be mainstream -- by which we meant: cryptocurrencies are not something that most of us will invest in -- but it would generate lots of coverage. A lot more than in previous years.

That prediction came quickly true in 2018. Newspapers have been covering bitcoin on an almost daily basis this year. Fortune devoted its Jan. 18th issue to bitcoin.

Fortune even has a dedicated page on its website to bitcoin.

Check out the cover story: "How High Can Bitcoin's Price Go in 2018?"

For all the coverage and the interest in cryptocurrencies that rise and fall dramatically, we continue to feel they are a niche investment opportunity. Will bitcoin and its sibling cryptocurrencies thrive and take over from government-backed currencies? Certainly doesn't seem likely over the next decade.

But as we move away from using cash -- there are already some restaurants that don't accept paper currency; you have to pay electronically -- that may change, especially for people doing legitimate business across borders. The reason: banks add on fees on both sides of the transaction when American businesses pay international partners/vendors in dollars and that money has to be converted into local currency. Those fees can eat up -- unnecessarily, it seems -- a significant percentage of the transaction. With bitcoin, you avoid those fees because you don't need to convert from one currency to another. So we expect some legitimate businesses to push for the use of paying and accepting via cryptocurrency.

But there needs to be some standardization among cryptocurrency. 

And it needs to not be as volatile as bitcoin currently is. You don't want to accept a currency that drops 50% in a matter of hours, with no discernable reason.