The 2008 predictions weren’t the most accurate. Let’s see how we do for 2009.

• The Android platform will be absolutely huge. With Motorola, Sony Ericsson and a raft of Tier 2 manufacturers signed up, it will become the mobile platform from the mid to high end. Ignore the HTC G1, that’s just a rough first attempt by one manufacturer. 
• Despite Android, iPhone will remain big. There is always that 10% of the market who like paying extra for “luxury” brands
• SaaS ecommerce providers will go mainstream. The idea of only selling locally will become ridiculous. Everyone who can send something by mail-order will end up online. SaaS will be utterly compelling for small biz like this.
• Facebook will continue to grow with people who neither know nor care what a Social Network is but want to keep in touch with people they know
• Facebook Connect will be everywhere
• Investors in pre-revenue Web2 companies will start losing patience and grab the management reins. In most cases this will fail
• Nice-to-have webapps that cost anything to run will disappear at an ever increasing rate
• The various Irish Government “throw money at VCs” schemes will continue to fail miserably
• Nothing will change in the structure of Enterprise Ireland and how it funds companies
• The Incubation Centres in Ireland will continue to be a source of a large number of successful start-ups
• Twitter will be sold for a lot less than expected as they fail to execute on a business model
• Smart BigCorps will hoover up tons of start-ups for petty cash and start building for the economic recovery
• All the Twitter clones will disappear
• All the major SocNets will add Twittter-like functionality
• At least one global location aware mobile SocNet will get decent traction
• Garmin and TomTom will be beaten up by GPS-enabled phones
• Google will make a play to own the yellow pages space using Google Maps. Everyone, including your chimney-sweep, will end up there
• Wifi will start becoming the norm in mid-range point-and-shoot cameras and everyone, including your mum, will start photo-sharing
• The proliferation of local review sites will end and a few big players will own the space in Europe
• More APIs will become pay-for as “Free” becomes a dirty word
• Sony will file for the Japanese equivalent of Chapter 11, sell off everything that is non-core, exit all JVs and continue to struggle to define itself in the 21st Century
• Sony won’t create the PS4, a low-cost perfectly open platform, built around the web, media from-anywhere to-anywhere and open standards
• Sony won’t create the PSPhone  
• BlueRay will remain a perfect solution to a problem which doesn’t exist
• The Nintendo DSi will become the de-facto MP3 player for kids aged 3-15
• The DSi will be the catalyst to turn kids from consumers into generators
• Someone will build a GSM module for the DSi
• Someone will build a VOIP app for the entire Nintendo DS range
• Someone will provide solid internet access on the entire Cork-Dublin train line
• The Semantic web will remain something people write and talk about only
• The fastest growing webapp of 2009 hasn’t been written yet
• More Irish start-up founders will move to Silicon Valley
• 2009 will be the hardest year for Irish start-ups since 2002

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