Wayne Pan

YouTube announced an HTML5 version of the YouTube service a couple days ago. Now Vimeo is joining in and announced their new HTML5 player. This is great news for anybody that has an older computer, a slower netbook, or (like me) an older Mac Mini under your TV.

Watching an older flash video on the older YouTube, my CPU utilization from Safari and Flash is between 100 – 150% usage:

Watching the same video on YouTube HTML5 Beta, my CPU usage hovers around 20-25%:

Not a month into the new year and already one of my 2010 predictions is rolling along.

• iPhone 4G – Just as the sun will rise, Apple will release a new iPhone every year. My only prediction is that the screen resolution will be more than the current 3G. They have to keep pace with the Droid, Nexus One, HTC HD2, etc…
• First compelling HTML5 apps that will force people to get off IE – Native video support will be the driving force here. Imagine if every YouTube video was in HTML5. Native video support requires much less processing power than Flash video. All those low powered netbooks out there will finally be able to play internet video without stuttering.
• Android market share surpasses iPhone – Enterprise will embrace Android over iPhone since Android is open. That coupled with free with contract Android phones, this is a no brainer.
• Gowalla will be the dominate location based social “network” – Loopt will sink as foursquare and Gowalla gain. It’s too early to tell but to me it’s a coin flip between the two. However, I do think Gowalla’s model for rewards is much better than foursquare’s Mayor model. As time goes on, Mayors will be harder and harder to usurp making the “game” aspect less fun.
• Facebook will IPO and not acquire Zynga – 2010 is ripe for IPO after all the ‘09 M&A. Zynga will get left behind as Facebook will continue to grow at an outstanding rate.
• Chrome OS won’t make a dent – How do you explain to a regular consumer that the netbook they’re about to buy is basically only a browser. “So you mean I only get Internet Explorer for the same price as this Windows (XP) machine?” I’m secretly hoping that it’s a raging success because it means WebKit gains more marketshare.
• There will be an Apple tablet – I’m not going to say anymore. It’s all been said.

2009 is ending, a year that started with Sequoia’s RIP: Good Times fresh in everybody’s mind. However, 2009 saw some major M&A activity.

I made some predictions at the beginning of the year, let’s see how they played out. Last year I was 50% correct…

• Twitter will not be acquired – Correct! Many people measure the success of Twitter in terms of traffic to twitter.com, but traffic isn’t what Twitter wants. Twitter is a platform and as Jack put it “Twitter’s a success for us when people stop talking about it”. I also predicted that Twitter would get their first sniff of revenue this year and they did in the form of search deals with Bing and Google.
• Digg will not be acquired – Correct! Digg’s appeal as an acquisition target went up threefold when they launched their innovate ad platform. No numbers have been released but as an avid Digger, the platform definitely works. I’ve clicked on my fair share of Digg ads simply because they appealed to me.
• Apple will open up iTunes infrastructure to developers to start accepting micro-payments – Wrong! Apple did do something around payments, they enabled app developers to charge or in-app purchases in free apps. One step closer to opening up their payment platform. If Apple did this, Square would be belly up.
• Android phones sales will not exceed iPhones, maybe in 2010 – Correct! AdMob’s latest metrics report, which measures ad requests not marketshare it’s clear Apple still has a substantial lead. Even based off ad requests it’s clear Android is no where near Apple and for this purpose, I’m calling it good enough.

  I guess I’m lucky that Google hasn’t released the Nexus One yet. Next year I definitely think Android will have a great marketshare than the iPhone purely based off the number of Android devices (low cost at that too) emerging.

• Facebook connect will become more ubiquitous than OpenID as a way to login to websites – Correct! Facebook says 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect. The best number I can find for OpenID is 25,000. Yahoo will soon use Facebook for it’s social features, Facebook’s platform will only continue to grow.
• IE6 marketshare will fall under 10% by years end – Wrong! IE6 still holds at 22%, and I still cry everyday.

Last year I was 50% accurate, let’s try for better this year.

• Twitter will not be acquired. They’ll have their first revenue stream keeping them independent for a bit longer.
• Digg will not be acquired. There’s still a ton of crazy things they can do to become the center of news. I just hope they figure out how to get rid of the nerd factor. Just look at this list, it’s not exactly the things your mom would read.
• Apple will open up iTunes infrastructure to developers to start accepting micro-payments. The biggest hurdle for mobile (in the US more than others) is how do you get users to pay you without help from the carriers. If Apple opens this up the industry will take a huge leap in the right direction.
• Android phones sales will not exceed iPhones, maybe in 2010. Apple still has too much momentum and good Android phones (read: good hardware) still haven’t launched.
• Facebook connect will become more ubiquitous than OpenID as a way to login to websites. I’m guessing here but there are way more Facebook users and OpenID users. I, for one, won’t be using it but then again I’m more paranoid about my online privacy than others.
• IE6 marketshare will fall under 10% by years end. Millions of web devs will implode as they are overcome with joy.

So 2008 is almost coming to an end and what a wild ride in the tech industry. In some cases we’re better off, no more start ups getting inflated valuations for putting a website (see crazy valuations of facebook apps). On the other hand the economy seems to be going to hell in a hand basket and most startups are going into survival mode.

In the beginning of the year I made some predictions. Lets see how those turned out….

Facebook will decline as people either go to the next hottest thing or advertisers realize their ROI on the FB ad platform isn’t the greatest. – 50% Wrong/50% Correct
I was wrong on the general consumer side as facebook.com has been increasing steadily on the one metric that matters these days, minutes spent. TC reported that Facebook is gaining on Google and passed MySpace back in March.

However, I wasn’t wrong on the ad platform side. Facebook’s ad platform has fallen flat on it’s face. Facebook Beacon hasn’t been relaunched since the original debacle. Most app developers have moved on as they realized their $0.10 eCPMs weren’t worth the headache. With it’s $15 billion valuation from the Microsoft round is a distant memory, they’re bleeding money.

Google will acquire at least two mobile companies to aid Android iPhone will continue to gain mobile browser market share stagnating the mobile web even more. Wrong
I couldn’t find an authoritative list of Google’s 2008 acquisitions but I don’t recall them making a single mobile one this year. Not surprising since nobody is in the M&A market these days.

Slide or RockYou will be acquired. If 07 was the year of widget, 08 will be the year they cash in. Wrong!
Nobody wanted to acquire these guys… low social network eCPMS with a bad economy equal no cash out.

Google or Microsoft will launch an Amazon AWS competitor Correct!
Google App engine was launched, with just a little fanfare. I think once they start supporting languages other than Python, it’ll do quite well.

Yahoo will close at least 4 more properties in an attempt to slim down. Correct!
I think the death count is somewhere north of 15 properties. This list used to be a LOT longer.

A web 2.0 company outside the US will eek out a new niche – Unknown
Honestly, I don’t know one “web 2.0″ company that I currently use that is based outside of the US except for last.fm. If you use one please leave a comment… Is it because startups can’t break into the US market?

At any rate, stay tuned for my 2009 Predictions. Obviously I’m Nostradamus when it comes to these things (/sarcasm)

More to record my own thoughts…. Let’s do the obvious ones first:

• Facebook will decline as people either go to the next hottest thing or advertisers realize their ROI on the FB ad platform isn’t the greatest
• Google will acquire at least two mobile companies to aid Android
• iPhone will continue to gain mobile browser market share stagnating the mobile web even more

Now some not so obvious ones:

• Slide or RockYou will be acquired. If 07 was the year of widget, 08 will be the year they cash in.
• Google or Microsoft will launch an Amazon AWS competitor
• Yahoo will close at least 4 more properties in an attempt to slim down. (one down)
• A web 2.0 company outside the US will eek out a new niche (see last.fm)