Blind Five Year Old

As we begin 2010, it’s time for me to go on the record with some predictions. A review of my 2009 predictions shows a few hits, a couple of half-credits and a few more misses. Then again, many of my predictions were pretty bold.

This year is no different.

The Link Bubble Pops

At some point in 2010, the link bubble will pop. Google will be forced to address rising link abuse and neutralize billions of links. This will be the largest change in the Google algorithm in many years, disrupting individual SEO strategies as well as larger link based models such as Demand Media.

Twitter Finds a Revenue Model

As 2010 wears on Twitter will find and announce a revenue model. I don’t know what it will be and I’m unsure it will work, but I can’t see Twitter waving their hands for yet another year. Time to walk the walk Twitter.

Google Search Interface Changes

We’ve already seen the search mode test that should help users navigate and refine search results. However, I suspect this is just the beginning and not the end. The rapid rate of iteration by the Google team makes me believe we could see something as radical as LazyFeed’s new UI or the New York Times Skimmer.

Behavioral Targeting Accelerates

Government and privacy groups continue to rage against behavioral targeting (BT), seeing it as some Orwellian advertising machine hell bent on destroying the world. Yet, behavioral targeting works and savvy marketers will win against these largely ineffectual groups and general consumer apathy. Ask people if they want targeted ads and they say no, show them targeted ads and they click.

Google Launches gBooks

The settlement between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers will (finally) be granted final approval and then the fireworks will really start. That’s right, the settlement brouhaha was the warm up act. Look for Google to launch an iTunes like store (aka gBooks) that will be the latest in the least talked about war on the Internet: Google vs. Amazon.

RSS Reader Usage Surges

What, isn’t RSS dead? Well, Marshall Kirkpatrick doesn’t seem to think so and Louis Gray doesn’t either. I’ll side with Marshall and Louis on this one. While I still believe marketing is the biggest problem surrounding RSS readers, advancements like LazyFeed and Fever make me think the product could also advance. I’m still waiting for Google to provide their reader as a while label solution for eTailers fed up with email overhead.

Transparent Traffic Measurement Arrives

Publishers and advertisers are tired of ballpark figures or trends which are directionally accurate. Between Google Analytics and Quantcast people now expect a certain level of specificity. Even comScore is transitioning to beacon based measurement. Panel based traffic measurement will recede, replaced by transparent beacon based measurement … and there was much rejoicing.

Video Turns a Profit

Online video adoption rates have soared and more and more premium content is readily available. Early adopters bemoan the influx of advertising units, trying to convince themselves and others that people won’t put up with it. But they will. Like it or not, the vast majority of people are used to this form of advertising and this is the year it pays off.

Chrome Grabs 15% of Browser Market

Depending on who you believe, Chrome has already surpassed Safari. And this was before Chrome was available for Mac. That alone isn’t going to get Chrome to 15%. But you recall the Google ‘What’s a Browser?‘ video, right? Google will disrupt browser inertia through a combination of user disorientation and brand equity. Look for increased advertising and bundling of Chrome in 2010.

Real Time Search Jumps the Shark

2009 was, in many ways, the year of real time search. It was the brand new shiny toy for the Internati. Nearly everyone I meet thinks real time search is transformational. But is it really?

A Jonathan Mendez post titled Misguided Notions: A Study of Value Creation in Real-Time Search challenges this assumption. A recent QuadsZilla post also exposes a real time search vulnerability. The limited query set and influx of spam will reduce real time search to an interesting, though still valuable, add-on. The Internati? They’ll find something else shiny.

The real estate bubble popped. Will the link bubble be next?

The real estate bubble was the product of greed, low interest rates, loose lending policies and derivatives. Nearly anyone could get a house and people bought into the idea that real estate would always be a good investment. The result of this irrational exuberance? Homes were valued far more then they were worth.

The Link Bubble

Are links that different than real estate?

Links have traditionally been a reliable sign of trust and authority because they were given out judiciously, a lot like mortgages. For a long time link policies were tight. You needed references and documentation before you earned that link.

In addition, links weren’t looked upon as an investment tool. The concept that links influenced SEO hadn’t taken hold. The motivation behind links was relatively pure and that meant Google and others could rely on them as an accurate signal of quality.

Links or Content?

Many have recently bemoaned the death of hand crafted content and the rise of content farms as a threat to search quality. But is content really the problem?

Content has little innate value from a search perspective. Yes, search engines glean the content topic based on the text. It’s like knowing the street address of a house. You know where it is and, probably, a bit about the neighborhood. But it doesn’t tell you about the size, style or quality of the home.

Long tail searches are akin to searching for a house by street address. So, content without links may sometimes produce results. But the vast majority of searches will require more information. That’s where links come in.

McDonald’s Content

Lets switch analogies for a moment. Some have called Demand Media the McDonald’s of content. There’s a bit of brilliance in that comparison, but not in the way most think.

Both McDonald’s and Demand Media crank out product that many would argue is mediocre. Offline, McDonald’s buys the best real estate and uses low prices, brand equity and marketing to ensure diners select them over competitors.

Online, Google holds the prime real estate. But that real estate can’t be outright purchased. And in the absence of price, we’re left with brand equity and marketing. Online, brand equity translates into trust and authority. And links are the marketing that help build and maintain that brand equity.

Demand Media has brands (their words) that give it automatic trust and authority. Publish something on eHow and it automatically inherits the domain’s trust and authority, built on over 11 million backlinks.

Writers for Demand Media are provided revenue share opportunities on their articles. Here’s one of the tips they give to writers to boost traffic to their articles.

2) Link to your article from other websites.

Link from your own website or blog, from a message board or forum, from your social networking profile on MySpace or Facebook and more. The more high quality links to your article there are on the web, the more highly a search engine will rank it.

Demand Media combines the installed brand equity of multiple sites (which happen to be cross-linked) with an incentive to contributors to generate additional links. The content doesn’t have to be great when links secure premium online real estate.

There might be something better down the road, but McDonald’s is always right there at the corner.

Link Inflation

The last few years have produced major changes surrounding links. Linkbuilding is now a common term and strategy. A number of notable SEO firms tout links as the way to achieve success.

Linkbuilding firms sprung up. Linkbulding software of various shades of gray were launched. Paid links of various flavors flourished. Social bookmarking and networking accelerated link inflation. And new business models like Demand Media sprung up to take advantage of the link economy, creating a collection of sites and implementing incentives that result in something that resembles derivatives.

Link policies went from tight to loose and people got greedy. Anyone can get links these days. So what’s the natural result of this link activity?

Link Recession

The value of links is inflated and at some point the system will correct. The algorithm will change to address the abuse of links. Unlike The Federal Reserve, Google probably isn’t looking for a soft landing, nor are they going to extend a bailout.

Some links will continue to matter. Links that are in the right neighborhood. The ones with tree lined streets, good schools and low crime. But will links from cookie cutter planned communities still be valuable? Strong links will mean more because they’ll hold their value, while many more links will be neutralized.

I’m no Nouriel Roubini, but I do believe that a major link correction is coming in 2010. Google must address the link bubble to make search results better.

Now is the time when bloggers go on the record with their thoughts for the year ahead. Place your bets! Stake your claim! Here’s mine.

Facebook Becomes A Portal

Realizing that social media and advertising is like oil and water, Facebook repositions itself as a portal leveraging Microsoft’s Live Search as the revenue model. This also might result in the potential acquisition of Netvibes to provide a more robust offering to compete with Yahoo!

Identity Systems Fail

Confused about the difference between OpenID, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, users throw up their hands and decide not to use any of the above.

Video Advertising Succeeds

The adoption of video is surging faster than many expected. Longer formats and better quality will bring even more eyeballs who will grudgingly accept advertising.

Microformats Go Mainstream

Why they aren’t already is shocking. Nevertheless, in 2009 we’ll see microformats become a standard and search results will become far more robust as a result.

Banner CTR Becomes Obsolete

Brands will finally realize that measuring success by click through rate (CTR) isn’t working. Measurement ‘beyond clicks’ will be the new yardstick, whether that’s through new brand advertising measurement services like Vizu or through monitoring services like Brandwatch and Trackur among a gaggle of others.

RSS Adoption Spikes

Someone will (finally) figure out how to market RSS to ‘the masses’ who will grasp the sublime benefits of having content come to you instead of the other way around.

Kindle 2.0 Flops

Amid a weak economy Amazon releases the newest version of Kindle. Other readers have gained ground where Kindle has not and at the core Kindle is a solution without a problem.

Google Search Share Stalls

The move by Facebook (see above) causes a radical change in the search landscape. Microsoft passes Yahoo! for second place and talks about a Microsoft Yahoo merger are (unbearably) reignited.

FriendFeed Surpasses Twitter

FriendFeed adoption increases at an accelerated pace due to quick innovation, uncluttered design and an interface that lends itself to communication.

Someone ‘Dies’

Users reach social media overload and VCs get even more nervous about revenue creating social media shrinkage. In this instance ‘Dying’ means a company goes under or is purchased for a song. My short list includes Plurk, Twitter, Digg and Seesmic. This isn’t a reflection of the people or product but the inability to truly reach the mainstream with a service that has a profit model.

There are plenty of other things that I believe will happen in 2009, but they seem more obvious or an extension of current trends. Instead I tried to be a bit more bold, at least on a few of my predictions.

We’ll check in this time next year to see how I fared. In the meantime, feel free to comment and provide your feedback and reaction to my predictions.