Track Record: How We Scored on Ongoing Trends

We identified 18 ongoing trends for 2018, and we think we did well with regard to most of them. 

1. The news cycle will continue to speed up. People are experiencing news fatigue because so much is happening daily. (By contrast, there were only a few stories — like the rescue of the Thai soccer team — that had the staying power to dominate the news cycle over a period of days. Otherwise, most stories, even some that previously would have dominated for a week or two disappeared, often without having much impact in 2018. This will continue in 2019. Grade: A+.
2. 2018 will be tough for traditional and online media. Unfortunately, true. Grade: A+.
3. Fake news won’t fade in 2018. Unfortunately, true. Grade: A+.
4. Cord cutting will continue but still won't save money: Netflix dominated news coverage and more media companies are offering streaming services but we did see an uptick in coverage that cord cutting is complicated and expensive. Grade. A.
5. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality still won’t be everywhere. Both VR and AR are making progress but neither is there yet. Grade: A.
6. IoT will continue to be victim to cyberattacks. This did not get as much attention as we expected but that may be because IoT and Smart Homes have not been broadly adopted yet. Grade: C.
7. The future is still looking cloudy. This may be the one tech trend that has yet to experience a backlash. Grade: A.
8. Driverless cars attract significant coverage. Got lots of coverage in 2018. We think it’s going to take longer than most people think for driverless cars to get wide approval. We also said we think electric cars will generate more media coverage. Tesla certainly got tons of coverage in 2018, not all of it positive. Grade: B+.
9. There's never enough cybersecurity/privacy. Unfortunately, true. Grade: A+.
10. NFL ratings will continue to decline. We were right for the 2017-2018 season, because overall, ratings were soft. The 2018-2019 season seems to be rebounding (which we realize is a basketball term). Grade: B-.
11. Corporate boycotts & consumer boycotts will continue. We saw some high profile boycotts from brands that pulled their advertising from controversial hosts. This will continue in 2019. Grade: B+.
12. Drug pricing will continue to get a lot of attention. And we said, “But there won’t be an easy solution so don’t expect much except outrage.” Grade: A.
13. Wearable tech will still not be as mainstream as people in the industry were hoping. True, which is why we did not see much media coverage about wearable in 2018. We still believe wearable is making progress but 2018 was not its year for media coverage. Grade: B.
14. STEM will continue to be important. STEM is important but isn’t getting the media coverage it used to generate. Grade: C+.
15. 3-D content, 3-D TV and 3-D printers will still not be as popular as they are cool. Correct (we still think). Grade: A.
16. Artisanal will still be a hot concept. True as far as we can tell but that doesn’t translate into media coverage. Grade: C.
17. e-Wallets still will gain traction in 2018 but mostly for Millennials as opposed to their parents. True as far as we can tell but that doesn’t translate into media coverage. Grade: C.
18. Content management remains king.  True as far as we can tell but that doesn’t translate into media coverage. Grade: C.

Let us know if you agree or disagree with our grading or if we missed an ongoing trend in 2018.

Final Recap of Our Predictions for 2017

As part of our predictions for 2017, we also looked at some ongoing trends from prior years that we thought would continue into 2017. Here's our list and how we did.

Ongoing trends:

1.      NFL ratings will continue to decline. Whether it’s overexposure or kneeling, we got this right. Grade: A

2.      Drug pricing will get a lot of attention. We got this right, too. Grade: A

3.      Wearable tech will still not be as mainstream as people in the industry were hoping. Fitness trackers aside, this was true. Grade: A

4.      Progress to a driverless-car future will slow down. We thought the problem would be a combination of needing to solve some technical issues as well as liability issues but we were wrong. Seems driverless-cars are moving forward quickly. Grade: D (because liability issues have not been resolved)

5.      3D printers will continue to proliferate in schools but remain unnecessary in the home. Still right about that. Grade: A

6.      Cord cutting will be expensive and complicated. There continue to be more streaming services but add up Internet access and lots of $10 monthly fees from many different providers (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, CBS, etc.) and it will quickly add up to be equal to your regular cable bill and vastly more complicated to juggle from one service to another. Grade: A

7.      eBook sales will continue to plateau while traditional book sales increase slightly. Actually, eBook sales declined nearly 20%, according to CNN. So we got part of it wrong – but printed books increased. Grade: A

8.      e-Wallets still won’t be as widely adopted as some were projecting. We said, “they will go mainstream but not in 2017 or 2018” and we’re probably right but we’re seeing more retail terminals taking wireless payment methods even if most purchases we’ve seen are conducted with traditional credit cards. So, while not everyone has transferred all wallet items into e-Wallets, certainly it’s a growing trend that’s alive and thriving. But could somebody please, please tell school photographers that we haven’t needed 1x4 wallet-size photos of our kids, much less eight 1x4s, in at least a decade. We have all the photos we need on our phones, thank you very much. Not even grandparents want them. Grade: C+ 

You can check out our other recap here and the first five here.

Look for our predictions for 2018 before Christmas.