Media Creature's 2010 Media Predictions, A Look Back
A year ago, Media Creature wrote:
Though I rarely jump into the year-end predictions fray, this year was so full of tumult in the media industry, from the crumbling fortunes of newspapers to the rise of Twitter, that I have to get into the game.With that I made six predictions about 2010 -- and vowed, privately anyway, that I would have to revisit them publicly at the end the year, no matter what. So, here are the six predictions, and what really happened during another year full of tumult in the media industry -- 2010:
1. Within the Leno/Conan/Fallon entertainment axis, Conan loses.
Predictive abilities: Extremely high. Even I have to give myself credit for this one, predicting, a few weeks before the whole thing began its slo-mo blow up, that things would unfold almost precisely as they did. It was, as Johnny Carson might have said, Carnac-like. Media Creature said:
NBC will move Jay Leno back to 'The Tonight Show' where he belongs and because he's a company man who does what he's asked to do. Jimmy Fallon will stay right where he is because his ratings have been OK and because there's no way O'Brien could turn back now. O'Brien will be given some vague development deal and then decamp to another network.Except for the bit about the production deal -- who knew Conan would go so noisily into the good night? -- this was far and away my most accurate prediction. Although it might make me look clairvoyant, it actually only proves I should go to bed earlier.
2. There will be a major privacy gaffe involving Facebook.
Predictive abilities: High, but so is the chance of snow in winter in New England. Media Creature wrote:
Now that it's possible to tell the entire universe what you're up to, and Facebook Connect is available on hundreds of content sites, there will be an uncomfortable, maybe even unintentionally illegal, crossover concerning information that was meant to be private, but was shared and targeted to anyway.I got this one right in that a privacy gaffe just like what I outlined, which was detailed by The Wall Street Journal, in a story about how some third-party Facebook apps were transmitting personally identifiable information (PII). Where I got it wrong was in limiting the privacy gaffes for 2010 to only one. This is Facebook we're talking about isn't it? Anyone remember that little controversy about "instant personalization" that broke out last spring? The one that had people promising to pull the plug on their Facebook accounts?
3. MySpace will become an entertainment site with social networking features, instead of being a social networking site with entertainment features.
Predictive abilities: Extremely high. It took until late October, but Myspace (now with a lower case "s"), finally came out with a redesign that was positioned just as Media Creature predicted. The News Corp.-owned site's CEO Mike Jones, described it to Forbes this way:
We want to become the leading social entertainment destination, connecting users to content that defines different entertainment tastes. We're not a social network.Enough said, except for this: if this was obvious even to me, why did it take ten months for Myspace to roll the thing out?
4. Super Bowl XLIV will be the first social Super Bowl, with CBS incorporating Twitter and Facebook Connect into its coverage.
Predictive abilities: Fair. This fruit was perhaps even more low-hanging than saying that Facebook would suffer a privacy gaffe, but, almost twelve months later, it's a little hard to ferret out whether CBS incorporated Twitter and Facebook Connect into its coverage. This much can be said, however: that the U.S. ratings record set by Super Bowl XLIV of 106 million viewers fit neatly into an overall pattern of high ratings for event TV, which analysts, including Media Creature, pinned as being attributable to social networking's ability to amp the hype machine.
5. YouTube will become profitable.
Predictive abilities: Unknown. According to a post earlier this month by Forbes, YouTube isn't in the black yet; on the flip side, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told The Financial Times in early January that he assumed the Google-owned property would be profitable in 2010 -- even though Schmidt had a few gaffes this year, on matters of Google finances one would hope he'd be a little more careful. I expect the answer won't be known at least until January, when the company will probably announce fourth-quarter and year-end earnings. Though customarily Google says little about YouTube, the question about YouTube profitability in 2010 will be asked. (Was that a prediction?)
6.The newspaper industry will try to move to an online subscription model, but it won't work.
Predictive abilities: Poor. Unfortunately, 2010 was another year of lots of talk, but little action, on the paywall front for newspapers. This was best exemplified by The New York Times' announcement in January 2010 -- as in, a year ago -- that it would implement a paywall for heavy users in January 2011 -- as in, a year later. One executive who stood out was Rupert Murdoch, who implemented a paywall for his Times of London and also bought a stake in Journalism Online, the Steve Brill-backed company that has developed a payment system that publishers can use once they build paywalls --whenever that is.
Of course, one thing was entirely missing from my errant paywall prediction: the iPad, which seems to have more subscription action going on than the Web does when it comes to newspapers. Murdoch is deep in development on his tablet-only The Daily, and some other major publishers -- like The Washington Post -- are planning to charge for their iPad apps.
I missed a few stories as well. I failed to predict the growing acrimony between cable providers, and the TV networks who persecute them, over the fees they feel they are owed. I also failed to see how fractious the competition would come over streaming video content over the Internet. Still, all in all, Media Creature's 2010 predictions were good enough that I've got bad news -- look for another post, later this week, of 2011 media predictions. Partial success has gone to my head.