The Intercept Validates Our Prediction about the Battle over the First Amendment on College Campuses

Each year, we issue a set of predictions for the following year, and at the end of that year, we evaluate the accuracy of our predictions. Our perspective is a very media-centric; since our goal is to advise our clients on how the media will be covering various topics, we judge how successful we've been by looking at the amount of media coverage on each topic.

For 2018, we had predicted that many companies would offer new services and products geared to millennials. We did not see a lot of media coverage of that trend but we continue to believe that millennials will help change how things are being sold and marketed. But without significant media coverage, we considered that prediction to be somewhat of a dud.

One of the other predictions we think turned out to be a dud was about battles about free speech on college campuses.

As background, in 2017, we predicted:

The first amendment becomes a battle-ground issue. Between campus culture wars(regarding who can speak on campus and who can disrupt those who try to speak on campus),varying definitions of hate speech and the more-open expression of bigotry, the fight to protect free speech will generate coverage in 2018. Part of the challenge is a polarize climate is finding the balance between allowing free expression and preventing bigoted express.

In February 2018, we felt this New York Times' article, "Republicans Stuff Education Bill With Conservative Social Agenda," confirmed that as a trend. The article included pullout text that described a "590-page higher education bill working its way through Congress" as "a wish list for those who say their First Amendment rights are being trampled."

But we didn't see significant coverage beyond that so when we graded all our predictions, we graded harshly. We gave ourselves an F.

But in a recent article in the Intercept -- published by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill to cover "national security, politics, civil liberties, the environment, international affairs, technology, criminal justice, the media, and more" -- that looked at false media equivalencies in the wake of the white supremacist violence of the last 10 days, made the case that free speech on campus has generated significant media coverage this year.

As a false equivalency, the Intercept article points to a "pattern of both-siderism...and false equivalencies  after any of the 18 deaths caused by white supremacists violence in 2017." As an example of false equivalency, the article noted that:

Instead, rivers of ink have been spilled condemning the disruption of Republican dinner plans and neo-Nazi speeches; according to FAIR, the New York Times alone featured 21 columns and articles this year expressing concern for right-wing speech on campus. 

We already issued our grade so we're not going to go back in and boost the grade. But we feel like 21 columns and articles is a fair amount of coverage on the topic, and that we did a good job on that one after all.

Also, earlier this week, the Wall St. Journal reported that "Amazon in Late-Stage Talks With Cities Including Crystal City, Va., Dallas, New York City for HQ2." We had predicted that Boston would not be picked, and unfortunately, we were right about that, too. At least we won the 2018 World Series (in a prediction we did not make).

Two other articles validate predictions we scored low. Both "Making Talk TV for a Post-TV Generation: 'Busy Tonight' and 'Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj' are two different takes on what the talk show can be in the age of Instagram and Netflix" in the New York Times and "Office Workers Have a Major Hang Up—Their Desk Phones" in the Wall St. Journal, report on the impact that millennials are having on products and services. We gave ourselves a low score because we didn't see a lot of coverage on this topic but it occurs to us, now, after we initially grade our predictions, that some of the millennials-bring-change stories have been more subtle in pointing out the reasons for how and why some products and services are changing.

Three Factors Affecting Retail That Should Concern Marketers -- Even Those Outside the Sector

(This article originally appeared in CommPro.biz.)

Amid news coverage about the latest U.S. economic growth and unemployment figures -- both, coincidentally, at 4.1% -- there's a story that hasn't been mentioned. It's not the potential impact of tariffs and trade wars. It's not about whether the coal sector should (or can) be revived.

It's about retail, which contributes $2.6 trillion annually to U.S. GDP, according to the National Retail Federation, approximately 15% of the total economy. That includes retailing companies along with other companies that support the retail industry, such as logistics, including trucking and shipping; warehousing; construction and maintenance; agriculture; manufacturing; technology; and health care. 

Unfortunately, the retail sector has an opposite story to tell: Traditional retailers are not only not growing or hiring, many -- including Macy's, Sears, Gymboree, Lord & Taylor, Foot Locker, Gap, Starbucks, Subways, GNC and at least another dozen -- have announced plans to close more than 2,500 stores over the next year. Worse, Toys R Us (735 stores), Teavana (365) and Bon-Ton (256), among others, are shutting down completely.

I've never been a big shopper but the death of traditional retail -- what some are calling "the retailpocalypse" is bad news for marketers for the following reasons:

1. Laid-off workers may cut back purchases, ignore marketing messages: There are employees at 3,868 stores who will lose their jobs and benefits and will need new jobs. Even if no other store closes -- and after I originally wrote this, Brookstone announced it would close 100 mall store -- retailers have been cutting jobs even while maintaining the same number of stores. According to the Wall St. Journal, Macy's has shed 52,000 jobs since 2008; and according to the National Retail Federation, the sector employed 29 million people in 2012, but that number was down to 15,836,200 as of May 2017 -- almost a 50% decline in just five years. With reports that businesses are having trouble finding good employees, there may be good news for laid off retail staff. But those open positions may not be nearby and almost certainly will require convincing recruiters that non-traditional employees (since former retail employees may not have the necessary experience or skill sets) should not get screened out. Making a career transition is difficult, and we know that some may be unwilling or unable to secure full-time work in another sector. The implications for marketers: when people are out of work, they may not be receptive to marketing, promotions, etc. 
2. Store closings affects malls, local communities: By April 2018, announced store closings projected the loss of 77 million square feet of real U.S. real estate, on pace to surpass last year's record of 105 million square feet, the previously highest loss reported since 2008. These closings have affected prime locations like New York's SoHo neighborhood, malls and small towns. The problem for marketers: is the potential impact on communities and social patterns. According to a Time article, "The Death and Life of the Shopping Mall," from 2017, "The shopping mall has been where a hug swath of middle-class America went for far more than shopping. It was the home of first jobs and blind dates, the place for family photos and ear piercing, where goths and grandmothers could somehow walk through the same doors and find something they all liked." So when malls lose retail tenants, people stop hanging out. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the shift to e-commerce "has devastated" Britain's main streets or central shopping districts. The result: marketers may lose another touchpoint with consumers such as branded in-store merchandising and displays.
3. Loss of local retailers hits local media: Retailers, once an important source for local advertising, have cut back on advertising. Local newspapers have seen a decline in advertising that may be attributable to the drop in retailers' ads, and we continue to see local papers fire staffs and shrink the size of their papers. The problem for marketers: If newspapers -- both print and online -- shut down, marketers will lose important vehicles to reach consumers, whether with paid communications (such as circulars, coupons, and ads) or earned (such as mentions, articles, etc. via PR). 

Unfortunately, we're seeing a potential downward spiral. As more people get laid off from retail jobs, they may spend less so that more stores close. As more stores close, those businesses that support retail -- including, for example, toy makers who used to sell exclusively through Toys R Us -- may also close. Too many shuttered locations sends a negative message to other potential companies, disrupting the local economy as residents either order online or must drive further and further to buy the things they used to be able to find in town. And local media continues to fade away.

Traditional retailers need to know how to compete to offer what customers want, which includes selection, low cost, ease of returns. It takes more than Wal-Mart dropping "Stores" from its official name to show it's an e-commerce player. In the U.K., which has the highest rate of online purchasing according to Bloomberg Businessweek, there have been calls from people like the Chancellor of the Exchequer to "find a better way of taxing the digital economy."

It's important to note that Amazonification -- the dominance by Amazon, which is an often-cited reason for traditional retail's woes -- may not be inevitable. According to the Wall St. Journal's Christopher Mims "Even Amazon, a Colossus, Has Its Limits," part of where Amazon is most successful is in driving down prices of commodity items, not in developing premium devices like an iPhone (its success with Alexa notwithstanding). 

The bottom line: whether or not marketers operate in the retail sector, they need to be aware of the challenges facing retail. Marketers must look to make suggestions how their clients (whether they work in house or for an outside agency) can function during this period of disruption because some of the issues may also impact other sectors.

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 Validates Predictions on Bitcoin & Amazon

Though it's freezing out, we were warmed to come back from New Year's to see that the Wall St. Journal has validated two of our trends.

We predicted that bitcoin would be the subject of daily news coverage, and that seems to be very much to be the case, just check out the latest in a stream of articles about bitcoins: "For Bitcoin, A Year Like No Other In 2017, bitcoin became one of the market’s greatest speculative crazes; it remains to be seen whether it can live up to the hype." We expect this to continue throughout 2018. What's more, we expect to see dedicated columnists and online media outlets devoted to bitcoin. (That said, we're not sure bitcoin is not some kind of trend, and we are not endorsing bitcoin or cryptocurrency -- just saying we expect it to be a subject that gets covered by the news media.)

The other trend is about the market force and impact that Amazon wields. Check out Christopher Mims wrote, "Even Amazon, a Colossus, Has Its Limits," which does say that Amazonification is not inevitable. According to Mims, part of where Amazon is most successful is in driving down prices of commodity items, not in developing premium devices like an iPhone (its success with Alexa notwithstanding). He said, increasingly, Amazon serves as a retail platform for other retailers, taking 15% of their sales via amazon.com -- and that's why Amazon has its limits: because Amazon still needs other retailers to succeed on its platform. 

We think that's true but that Amazon continues to be the major retailing factor in 2018 and beyond. We expect Amazonification to be debated and examined throughout the year.

The Wall St. Journal Validates Our Prediction in a Column Entitled, "How Retailers Can Thrive in the Age of Amazon"

It almost seems like there's a law that an article about the status of the retail sector must mention Amazon.

In our predictions for 2018, we discussed the possibility of a "retailpocalypse" due to "Amazonification."

The Wall St. Journal interviewed a shopping mall owner in Bellevue, WA, and wrote about it in a In a column published after our predictions hit entitled, "How Retailers Can Thrive in the Age of Amazon The secret, says Bellevue Square’s owner, is to provide customers with ‘emotional fulfillment.’" So even in an article that looks at how retail can survive, please note:

1. The presence of Amazon in the headline.
2. The mall owner, Kemper Freeman, acknowledges that there are two problems facing most retailers, and one is that America has 50% more retail space per person than Canada and that Canada has about 50% more retail space per person than Germany -- and that Germany has it about right.

Which means even a mall developer who is doing well, and has found ways to drive people to his locations -- the article makes it clear that Freeman is actively engaged in boosting traffic -- feels the U.S. retail sector is facing problems, observing, "If he's right, a severe real-estate contraction is coming, and weak stores and malls will get eaten alive."

And that's from a booster of the industry.

Freeman also makes the point that online sales represents a low-double-digit percentage of overall retail sales, and that some of his malls' hottest retailers are those, like Amazon and Tesla, have an online and bricks-and-mortar presence at his mall.

In other words, for many, shopping is still entertainment, getting out of the house, socializing, and about a level of experience that point-and-click does not equal. According to Freeman, that's why bricks-and-mortar retail will survive but they have to know how. His bet? Macy's will not survive because it is run by accountants not by entrepreneurs, who truly value customers, not just costs (as accountants do).

We don't want retail to fail. We're just interested in how the media covers the sector, when we think it is vital to the U.S. economy.

We'll find out in mid-January how retail did this Christmas season when the National Retail Federation (NRF) releases the numbers at its annual conference. 

Key Predictions for Trends in 2018, Part II

When we evaluated trends for 2018, we came up with more than five -- while avoiding politics. 

Here's what we're calling our Bonus Set of Predictions:

1.  The media landscape will change in 2018. Beyond newsroom layoffs and publication shut downs, which is upsetting, the media landscape will change in other ways in 2018, thanks to three deals: a DOJ-opposed AT&T -Time Warner combination, a more likely Sinclair Broadcasting purchase of Tribune Media, and a Disney acquisition of Fox’s TV and movie studios (but not Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox TV channel). If two of those three deals go through, expect others as defensive moves.  In an Internet of media choices, consolidation at this level may not be in the consumers’ interest.

2.  Artificial Intelligence and robotics, now interconnected, will continue to be “hot.” A.I. and robotics will be combined in articles (instead of considered separately as in prior years), and we expect to continue to see scare stories about a “robocalypse” in which A.I.-enabled robots replace human workers as well as more-reasoned articles that debunk the scare stories. We’re not as worried because there we think it will open other types of jobs, and that implementing A.I. seems inevitable because the potential benefits could be so significant. 

3.  Innovation often will come via business models. You might not be able to get a reservation at that great local restaurant you’ve been ordering from but that’s because of their delivery-only business model relies solely on mobile-ordering apps. By eschewing things like waitstaff, expensive leases, and needing to focus on turnover rates for tables, these restaurants are able to flourish in a notoriously tough sector. We expect coverage of that sort of innovation – not so much of technology but in the use of technology – to continue in 2018.

4.  Bitcoin and blockchain is hitting it big time. Lots of coverage. Still not mainstream but finally reaches a point where people who haven’t paid attention at least have heard of the two cryptocurrency terms.

5.  Is the internet dying? Long before the (possible) end of net neutrality, some have predicted that the internet is dying. The internet (which was once so important it was always capitalized) has been subsumed by apps and by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which control much of the online ecosystem, from app stores to cloud storage to online ads. Ending net neutrality favors those five companies, while making it harder for small disruptive startups.

6.  The first amendment becomes a battle-ground issue. Between campus culture wars (regarding who can speak on campus and who can disrupt those who try to speak on campus), varying definitions of hate speech and the more-open expression of bigotry, the fight to protect free speech will generate coverage in 2018. Part of the challenge is a polarize climate is finding the balance between allowing free expression and preventing bigoted express.

7.  Millennials’ impact will change how companies market products and services. Currently America’s largest generation (sorry, boomers), millennials have had a significant impact on the workplace. In 2018, marketers will increasingly realize they need to change how they reach the 4.8 million 26-year-olds, and the millions of others currently 25, 27 and 24 as they encounter life-defining moments that include: choosing a career or to enter the gig economy; buying or renting a place to live, along with renovating or making repairs; taking on different responsibilities such as paying taxes and keeping track of their finances, including retirement; getting married, deciding whether or not to have kids and/or get a pet, and cooking. Millennials’ preferences and needs have already spawned new apps and services to deal with these responsibilities and choices. For example, we’re seeing a rise in food-delivery apps from restaurants that offer only takeout (not sit-down) service because they have a kitchen but no need for a dining room. We also expect a trend that began in 2017 to continue: companies will continue to develop educational programs such as classes, online tutorials and how-to videos on what the Wall St. Journal called “such basic skills as to mow the lawn, use a tape measure, mop a floor, hammer a nail and pick a paint color.” We also expect millennial preferences to become the default choice; for example, doorbells may become vestigial as millennials text, not ring, when they arrive at a friend’s house.

8.  Smart-Home automation will gain acceptance but still a niche offering. Smart homes are preferred in some markets by some buyers but not everyone wants them or values them yet. That said, smart home technology and appliances are getting easier to find, install and deploy. One possible driver of smart home tech could be counter-intuitive: with a growing population of seniors aging in their homes, their adult children may insist on installing tech that can help them monitor their parents. As long as the internet doesn’t crash, adult children will be able to check in on their parents, adjust heating and air conditioning (already possible with Nest and other devices), turn on lights and get help via apps that their parents may not have figured out. As tech-friendly boomers age in their own homes, expect them to embrace smart-home technology. We think Internet of Things (IoT) will continue to be a widely used phrase but that “smart home” is a more user-friendly term that may be easier to market. By the way, the biggest smart home tech segment will continue to be intelligent personal assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home speakers.

9.  The ranks of unicorn startups will grow but expect a backlash because unicorns are difficult to sustain. There’s a lot of money being thrown around, which is why we expect some of the enthusiasm for unicorns to diminish. It’s been very difficult to maintain a $1 billion-plus valuation in a meaningful exit. Also, we think New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo is right when he said, a continued threat for startups is that just “fewer than 1 percent … end up as $1 billion companies” and that the Frightful Five (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft) can out-pay key employees (an issue in the A.I. space), out maneuver or just invest in startups and co-opt them.

10. Religious nonprofits will be able to publicly make political endorsements, but doing so will change how they are perceived. As this is written, the GOP is discussing whether to eliminate the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits nonprofits from endorsing political candidates. We think Congress will repeal Johnson because it’s a campaign promise President Trump made. However, we think – and some, who otherwise hold opposing views, agree that it will affect how American’s perception when religious organizations are turned into political action committees. 

In our next post, we will post a set of ongoing trends that we think are important to keep in mind.

More on the Death of Retail

On July 17, we asked if Americans were seeing the death of traditional retail. In its July 31st issue, Time Magazine asked the same question. In its "The Death and Life of the Shopping Mall," Time not only shared some scary statistics -- like, "This year alone, an estimated 8,600 stores could close, according to industry estimates, many of them brand-name anchor outlets" -- but raised a point we didn't think of.

While we touched on the disruption to the commercial real estate market, we didn't discuss (except among ourselves) the impact of Amazonification on small towns. When local retailers can't keep up with Amazon (even as Amazon opens brick-and-mortar bookstores and supermarkets, now Whole Foods), they will close up, resulting in a problem for local towns from a tax revenue and employment perspective.

But it gets worse. As Time points out, many stores, including local malls, are not just places where people work or shop. As Time notes, "The shopping mall has been where a hug swath of middle-class America went for far more than shopping. It was the home of first jobs and blind dates, the place for family photos and ear piercing, where goths and grandmothers could somehow walk through the same doors and find something they all liked."

Retail can be a gathering place. They can act as town centers, giving people a reason to gather, not just to spend, and to work. Even if current retail staff switch from sales to warehouse, even if some don't lose their jobs, their communities will lose something important.

Without local stores and malls, where do people gather on bad weather days? Sure, restaurants, pubs, etc. will likely remain but other stores will have a tougher time. And that will have further implications on small communities.

Perhaps we're giving up something in exchange for efficiency and cheaper prices.

Anyway, check out the Time article. This will continue to be a trend we monitor because its implications are significant.

Is Traditional Retail Dead?

In Manhattan, there are always a bunch of stores -- aimed at tourists -- that hang huge banners proclaiming "Going Out of Business Sale -- huge discounts."

Some of those stores have been in business, it seems, for decades.

The overall retail sector may have a lot in common with those stores.

According to "The Death of Retail is Greatly Exaggerated,"

As of early May, S&P Global Market Intelligence tallied a record 18 retail bankruptcies, al­ready matching the total for all of 2016. The carnage is on full display in the new Fortune 500 list: Household names like Macy’s, Sears, and Kohl’s all took tumbles down the list, as did other struggling chains like GameStop (GME, -0.37%) (falling 19 spots, to 321) and Dillard’s (DDS, -0.94%) (which fell 37, to 417).

We began seeing/predicting the fact that retail would go through a rough 2017 back in Q1, and feel that it is a big issue because:

• The U.S. retail sector is a huge employer, including part-time and seasonal work: 15,836,200 as of May 2017 -- down from Feb. 2017 of 15,887,600, which represents a loss of 51,400 jobs, a significant drop in a short time. (By the way, back in 2012, the sector employed 29 million people, according to the National Retail Federation.) According to the NRF, which does a tremendous job of tracking the state of the retail industry, the retail sector "is the largest private employer in the United States. Retail directly and indirectly supports 42 million jobs." Basically 1/4 of all private jobs. We'll get to directly and indirectly in our third bullet. 

• The U.S. retail sector holds leases and owns a tremendous amount of real estate. According to one estimate, there are more than 1,000 malls in America and that doesn't include downtown real estate holdings. In fact, Macy's real estate holdings by themselves may be worth more than the actual retail side of the business, according to Fortune's senior retail reporter, Phil Wahba, who also wrote the "Greatly Exaggerated" story. That said, those value and viability of those real estate holdings may be in jeopardy if suddenly they all came onto the market. We've already seen the impact of retail-store closings on Greenwich Village's Bleecker St. in a New York Times article.

• The U.S. retail sector contributes $2.6 trillion annually to U.S. GDP, according to the NRF, approximately 15% of the total economy. That includes retailing companies along with other companies that support the retail industry, such as logistics, including trucking and shipping; warehousing; construction and maintenance; agriculture; manufacturing; technology; and health care. Basically, if the retail sector takes a hit, the rest of the economy will suffer.

Does this mean the retail sector is dying? Not really. The parts of the retail sector is somewhat cyclical and other parts are very sensitive to external factors -- like the weather or other trends. So a downward trend, by itself, is not necessarily troubling. And some retailers continue to do well, including Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, TJ Maxx and Best Buy, according to Fortune. 

What is troubling is that there's a fundamental shift going on, towards online and mobile. Bricks-and-mortar stores may no longer be about buying but sampling and community, according to another Fortune article. http://for.tn/2r8qLET. Instead, retail may seek to leverage: "newly available real estate to experiment with boutiques, showrooms, and pop-up shops." If that trend continues, it will mean a further decline in the number of full-time retail jobs and a further decline for companies that support retailers.

While reshaping retail to better meet the needs of consumer is good news, and more efficient, that's not good news for the long-term health of the sector. A lot of retailers that sell fashion commodities such as basic Ts and jeans will likely not survive in an e-commerce playing field. 

And one more thing, which has been overlooked by retail reporters: According to the NRF, 98.6% of businesses employ fewer than 50 people.  In a world in which most retail transactions take place online or via an app, these local mom-and-pop stores don't stand a chance. They may not have the skills and resources to move their business online, and may not be able to compete on price. They won't be able to survive the Amazonification of retail. This could decimate small retailers and small towns around the country.

That's going to be a big story the rest of 2017 and going forward.

 

2011 Trends Report Card, Part III

Here's the final part of our report card:

• The rules for social media will continue to evolve -- rapidly. Our point: Companies are still learning how to navigate social media, which gives newbies the opportunity to jump in, and to learn from what others are doing well as well as from mistakes others have made. One challenge remains: staying ahead of the range of sites, which can rise and fall in popularity...like the once dominant Friendster. Google-Plus launched in 2011 after some high profile social media failures on Google's part, but which generated 65 million users in a few months. So Google-Plus has quickly become a site that businesses should consider as part of their social media strategy. It's not to late to sign up, but it does mean another site to pay attention to, in addition to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
• There weren't media stories directly about this but in 2011, companies were judged by how quickly they respond to social media situations.  For example, when Kenneth Cole posted an offensive tweet about protests in Cairo during the Arab Spring, it took him six hours to respond to criticisms.  The story became focused on the amount of time it took Cole to respond. Overall: A.
• We said the press release would not die in 2011, and we feel that it didn't, even as some companies used Twitter to issue news.  We feel that the press release will continue to be relevant in 2012.
• Traditional media did move to a stable, if fragile, footing in 2011, as we predicted. 
• While there were more apps designed to allow viewers to interact with other viewers while watching TV, these apps are more for avid fans and did not exactly become common. Perhaps that's because it's an uncomfortable combination of lean-back activities like watching TV and lean-forward activities like using a computer. (Expect to hear a lot of people talk about lean-back/lean-forward activities in 2012.) We overstated this one. Grade: B-.
•  Hybrid, mashup and curation were used a lot in 2011, but they were not the most overused words. According to Lake Superior State University, the list of most overused words include: Amazing, Occupy, baby bump and man cave. I really dislike the last two. Grade: B.
• We were right about some of the top stories -- the economy, health care, politics, and the battle among Google vs. Apple, etc. (Check out an excellent Fast Company cover story that further validates this prediction: The Great Tech War Of 2012: Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon battle for the future of the innovation economy.)  We were wrong about 3D TVs -- not much media interest when there did not seem to be much consumer interest in the technology.Oprah's network, OWN, got some coverage, but was not a major story -- just as it did not turn into a major cable network. Yet. (Don't bet against Oprah.) Overall grade: B+.

We'll publish more of our annual predictions tomorrow. In the meantime, you can check out all our 2011 predictions here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

Amazon Validates Our Prediction about 2011: The battle between iPad and the iPad Killers

With the announcement last week of the Kindle Fire, its color e-reader based on the Android platform, Amazon has validated our prediction that an important trend/story this year would be the battle between the iPad and the iPad Killers. (Check out: Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2011, Part I.)

In the wake of perceived and actual failures like RIM's PlayBook and H-P's TouchPad, the iPad competitors have not lived up to the "killer" designation. Which explains some of the interest in the Kindle Fire as perhaps being a good challenger to the iPad. 

Is the Kindle Fire an iPad killer? Probably not in version 1.0, but it almost doesn't matter. From a media perspective, the Kindle Fire breathes new life into the iPad vs. competition story.

We Got Another Prediction Right

On Jan. 9, we issued a list of media predictions for 2009, mostly covering mainstream media's transition to online-only business model.

But we also made a prediction about Amazon's Kindle: that a new version should offer more colorful screens, easier ways to share articles to other users, even a text-to-speech or audio book option so you can throw your book in the car.

Well, Amazon just announced the 2.0 version of the Kindle, and among its features are an improved ability to share articles and text-to-speech.

We were optimistic about a color screen, so we're 2 for 3.

With longer battery lifer -- always an important feature in portable electronics -- the Kindle is looking better, and may beat our prediction of 2010 as the year that ebooks become mainstream. I think it will certainly well, but the $359 price during a recession may be steep for the average reader.