Jan

4

Ten Things That Won’t Happen In 2010

Filed Under B2B, Blog, eBook, Education, Industry Analysis, internet, news media, online advertising, Publishing, STM | 5 Comments

Are you now as fed up with information industry predictions as I am?  Down here at the bottom of the garden we see things inside out and upside down, so here are 10 things you can confidently ignore in 2010:

  1. All forecasts of a return of advertising levels, regardless of media or format, to “normal”, “pre-recession levels” or equivalent values.  It is not going to happen.
  2. All pronouncements, political or commercial, that suggest that a law, technology or even divine intervention will solve the crisis of intellectual property management or control in the network.  We are in Eden and have eaten the Apple.  Live with it.
  3. Any press release that suggests that eBook, its standards or the technology of access is a finished process ready to be slotted into normal life on Earth.  It takes five steps to download to my Sony eReader – this is an abnormal process and only afficionados would begin to attempt it.
  4. Any pronouncement, even from Mr Murdoch himself, that says that paywalls work OK, people love them and are more than happy to contribute to the funds of hard-pressed News Corp.  Water still flows around a dam, given half a chance.
  5. Anyone who says that the advocates of Open Access in science publishing are winning, losing or changing anything with this argument.  The real issue is defining the future of scholarly communication in the network, and seeing where the commercial entrepreneurial input is needed.  Those who get detained in false arguments with fakirs and fake prophets will be engulfed and lost in the morass of inter-academic argument.
  6. All those who proclaim the eTextbook and say that a format switch will ensure that educational publishers will  live happily ever after.  Education is the Frontline, and is now changing rapidly.  2010 will be the year of critical transformation in many parts of the world except where state control is absolute (e.g. France) or the system is too poor to cope (the UK).
  7. All claims that commoditisation of content will  ease because some content players have re-enacted the parable of King Canute (or Cnut, or Knut – when you have Danish kings you have to live with constant variation).  Google, at a stroke, is now a provider of primary law globally.  If law publishers have any idea of where the value chain is they need to be climbing it to safety with the speed of Canute’s courtiers saving him from the incoming tide.
  8. Any continuing claims that you can move the brand of a trade magazine to the network without fundamentally altering its role or its customer relationships, and that brand values will enable it to survive.  The network is a service zone, not a product promotion space.  We have spent a decade learning this and surely we do not have to go through it all again in 2010?
  9. Anyone who says that customer-created content does not work.  Now that our financial services operators fully recognize their role as value re-cyclers and aggregators, there is no excuse for the rest of the class.
  10. Anyone who proclaims the arrival of a new age and names it web 3.0 , 4.2 or X marks the spot.  We are working within a new continuum, every technology we will use in the next 15 years has already been invented and patented, and what remains to be seen is only the way in which consumers react to which combinations of hardware/software/content to solve which problems in what contexts. And nothing is lost by experimentation.

If we are all unfazed by the the tendency of the market to create smoke and erect mirrors, then we can get on with the real game.  As in every year from 2000 to 2010, clever and knowing players, whatever they call themselves, will make real money in information markets.  I hope you are one.  Happy New Year from the bottom of the Garden!


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5 Comments so far

  1. Eoin Purcell on January 6, 2010 23:53

    David,

    Great post, particularly like the last point!

    All the best,
    Eoin

  2. Anne Foster on January 8, 2010 00:00

    It seems to me that publishers may have a struggle finding which rungs to cling to in that clamber up the value ladder. You are correct to say we’ve all been here before, but when it comes to user created content, publishers used to argue that they had all the value because they had the packaging and marketing smarts. But even in tradtional publishing, book packagers (often redundant publishers jettisoned in earlier attempts to keep the financial analysts happy)proved that you can do this outside the company as well or better. Google may not be very elegant yet, but it has created a great gloop of packaging space for someone else to turn into marketable commodities.

  3. Predictions | The Casual Optimist on January 8, 2010 14:49

    […] Ten Things You Can Comfortably Ignore in 2010 — David Worlock, publishing analyst and advisor, Thoughts from the bottom of my garden…: Anyone who proclaims the arrival of a new age and names it web 3.0 , 4.2 or X marks the spot.  We are working within a new continuum, every technology we will use in the next 15 years has already been invented and patented, and what remains to be seen is only the way in which consumers react to which combinations of hardware/software/content to solve which problems in what contexts. And nothing is lost by experimentation. […]

  4. uberVU - social comments on January 8, 2010 20:36

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by kanderson: http://bit.ly/7TUuYM A great list of 10 things that won’t happen in 2010, from David Worlock….

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