Other people look forward to the end of the
year for holidays, but we look forward to looking back at our predictions to
see how well we did.
Before getting to the results of how we did
on the trends we picked, let's start by noting which trends did not
pick. First, we stayed away from talking politics and making predictions about
the election -- and we're glad we did. (While our parents told us not to talk
about politics, we are interested aspects that affect the media, and we will
pick up some of the implications in our predictions for 2017 -- so stay tuned.)
We also failed to predict that the Chicago Cubs would win the team's first
World Series in 108 years (but we'll go on record that Theo Epstein, who was in
charge when the Red Sox won its first championship in 86 years and was the
brains behind the Cubs, is a lock to make it into the Major League Baseball
Hall of Fame).
Here's a look at how we did on the
predictions we did make:
1. The
media will have a good year. Overall, 2016 was a difficult year for the
media so we got this one mostly wrong. That said, from a business perspective,
we said, "Some media outlets still haven’t figured out how to build a
sustainable business model from paywalls, online ads, and native advertising
(aka clickbait)" -- and we were right about that. But campaign dollars did
not do as much as we thought to boost traditional media revenues. Worse, the
credibility of the media was attacked by both political parties and by the
media itself. This is a serious problem, especially considering the attack on
"facts" that occurred as a result of this year's political campaign. Grade:
B-.
2. Drug
pricing will get a lot of attention. We got this one right. There was
a lot of media and social media attention, mostly regarding the rising cost of
EpiPens. What we overestimated was the level of action that Congress took (not
much beyond some hearings). Grade: A-.
3. Tech
turns into Towers of Babel. We overstated the situation for Internet
of Things. It made progress but not yet the way we thought. It did turn into
something of a backdoor security issue, and we certainly can expect more of
that to come. Grade: C+.
4. The
rise of Artificial Intelligence. We said, "The ways we can use AI
and machine learning will increase in 2016, helping us make better business,
personal and health decisions and helping to address security concerns."
We think that's right (and we're not saying if our use of AI helped us come to
that conclusion. People will continue to be concerned about the implications of
AI, but like IoT, we think those fears won't slow down acceptance. Grade: A.
5. Whither
unicorns and their business models? We got this right, too: Some unicorns – startups
valued at upwards of $1 billion – faced some serious issues. Even as Trump used
Twitter to win the election (according to him), Twitter the company encountered
problems as it tried to sell itself to companies no longer interested in the
little blue bird. We believe it will be increasingly difficult for Unicorns or
Unicorn-wannabes in 2017. Grade: A.
6. Content management remains king. This was an easy one. Grade:
A.
7. More
will cut the cord in 2016. Despite this headline, we actually said
that "we expect some people not to cut the cord because it’s more
complicated and not necessarily cheaper if you cut the cable cord." But we
did say that people are more likely to watch TV on devices as opposed to
gathering around a big screen TV to watch as a family; that's on the decline. Grade:
A.
8. The
importance of a college education will continue to generate media interest.
Student debt was a topic during the primaries but faded as the campaign went
on. So we mostly overstated this; we also said that the nature of education
will have to change in an age of instant access to facts, making memorizing
certain facts not as helpful as actually understanding the underlying issues
around history, science, literature, etc. Grade: B-.
9. The
gig or on-demand economy will continue to grow. We're not sure if the
number of people in the gig economy has increased -- since we don't know if there's
an accurate way to measure the gig economy -- but there has become more media
coverage and mainstream. Grade: A.
10. Virtual
Reality won’t go mainstream, yet. Media outlets like the New
York Times, Wall St. Journal and USA Today now offer virtual reality content
but VR is still much more of a novelty than an accepted mainstream technology.
It could become more mainstream by 2018. Grade: A.
11. The market
for wearable tech and for IoT will continue to grow. But it didn't grow as much we expected. Grade: B.
12.
3D printers will be popular in schools. We said don't expect
3D printers in every home just yet. We were right. Grade:
A.
13. Crowdfunding will lose buzz. People are still using
crowdfunding but we feel we were right that "the novelty of
crowdfunding... (will) fade. Grade: A.
14. eBook sales will plateau. We don't think eBooks will
fade but we were right in that there wasn't much media buzz about eBooks in
2016. Grade: A.
15. Drones may start falling back to earth. Consumer drones like
the one that fell on the White House lawn (in 2015) have caused some issues and
demands for regulating their use, but drones are not the buzzy media topic they
once were, as we predicted (and as validated by the New York Times’ Farhad Manjoo. Grade: A.
16. Will FinTech shake up traditional banking? Apps that
support banking and financial services, like Apple Pay, Google Wallet and
others, are disrupting (or disintermediation)
traditional banks. But credit cards are not about to be displaced so easily,
which is why we think FinTech isn't really shaking up the industry yet. No
doubt it will get there, within three to five years. Until then, don't throw
away your check books. Grade: A.
17. China may live in interesting times. China got the
media's attention -- including for regarding the valuation of the Renminbi and
cybercrime perpetrated against the U.S. and U.S. businesses -- but not as much
as we expected. We think the new administration will focus more attention on
China. Grade: B-.
18. The concern about cybersecurity,
privacy, encryption and government surveillance is already changing. Last
year, we did not predict that Wikileaks, with apparent help from Russia, would
play such a significant role in this year's election. But the party that did
not get hacked is being led by someone who seemed to campaign on the promise to
do more with cybersecurity to catch domestic-based terrorists before they carry
out attacks. Grade: B.
19. A big issue with driverless cars won’t be the technology or
safety record. Actually, there's still an issue with the technology
but the insurance requirements and state laws remain an obstacle. Grade: B+.
Now, we're looking forward to our next favorite part of the year:
Making predictions for next year. Look for them to hit in mid-December.
