The Argolon/LouderVoice 2008 Predictions
Here’s a few quick ones off the top of my head:
- Cubic Telecom will have a £100m exit
- European Founders, Howzat Media, TAG or Advent will do a deal with a web or mobile start-up here
- More foreign VCs will invest in Irish web start-ups than Irish VCs
- One of the current batch of Irish Web 2.0 start-ups will go global in a big way
- EI’s €170m VC fund will continue to provide minimal benefits to Irish web start-ups
- Eircom’s small fund will result in two major web start-up successes
- Someone will launch a full Y Combinator/Seedcamp here
- Minister John McGuinness will be given responsibility for re-structuring all state bodies concerned with business
- EI will absorb Údarás na Gaeltachta
- EI will launch a self-contained web unit with its own budget, minimal red-tape, firewall access to Facebook and based in the Cork Gaeltacht or Kilkenny
- Damien Mulley will launch his own start-up
- Six Apart will launch a free version of Typepad
- Six Apart or Automattic will launch a full blown social network built on their blogging platforms
- Facebook Sign-to-Noise will continue to plummet as more and more people join and repeat usage plateaus (How many FB apps did I have to install this week just to read happy new year messages?)
- There will be a management bloodbath at a high level in the mobile operators as they see ARPU drop on traditional services and continue to sit idly-by, unable to make sense of the mobile internet
- Google’s Mobile strategy will continue to peek out here and there and continue scare the bejesus out of the incumbents
- The first Google Android phone will be launched by HTC and won’t be fantastic
- Amazon will merge with eBay
- Amazon will seriously impact Apple iTunes
- Google will buy 3 (ok ok that’s wishlist too)
- RyanAir will buy 3 :-)
- Ye know I cannot come up with one decent prediction about Microsoft. More of the same maybe?
- The BBC will brand the OLPC XO as the BBC Micro Model D and launch a major combined TV and internet education program around it
- Google will buy Bebo
- One of the video 2.0 companies will be massive (Qik, Seesmic, Kyte, Ustream etc)
- A dedicated generic Irish Social Network will be launched
- Bandon and Old Chapel will get 12 Mbs broadband (that’s on the fantasy list)
- Old Chapel residents will get flat-rate unencumbered 3.5G on our phones (ditto)
- 2008 will provide tougher challenges but greater rewards to Irish entrepreneurs than 2007
More as I think of them!