Predictions for 2018

[Shepherd]

1. Bitcoin will have a value of <$100 per coin by the end of the 2018.

2. google ad revenue will stagnate.

3. Most of the major wired ISPs will begin offering packages treating websites/online services like tv channels.

4. Wireless ISPs will gain significant market share of the home ISP market.

5. Amazon will continue to grow and dominate the ecom market. They will choose Florida for their second headquarters. Amazon may tender an offer to purchase Walmart.

[graeme_p]

Small online businesses outside the EU - those that know about it, anyway - will decide that complying with GDPR is too much hassle and will simply block EU visitors from their websites.

Or simply ignore it and see what the EU can do to enforce it.

Web Apps will be forced to lower their data footprint across all devices

How?

[mcneely]

How?

On iPhone for instance, if you want to be distributable over a cell network your application has to be under 50 mb -- Caps are already in place in this instance and I see that caps will most likely be reduced even more in the future -- ISP's will most likely jump on this too in that regard

[hnrindani]

SEO Predictions:
According to my SEO experience and my understanding of Google, I would believe that Google will figure out the ways to deal with mobile-first search. Though they have previously tried that, it is still not implemented as they would have liked it to be. Many brands are still not present on mobile and I feel Google will surely bring on tough rules for mobile optimization.

Along with it, I believe voice search would increase and content should be well optimized to match the phrases that users are expected to use. This would be a challenge but it would surely be on the cards for SEO specialists.

Apart from all this, Local SEO would be of more importance than ever before. You need to prepare well for local search results or you will be out of the race. All in all, Google is becoming more and more user-centric and is looking forward to make changes keeping users at the center.

IT predictions:
1. Global tech-giants will deliberately self-disrupt
2. Blockchain based cryptocurrencies will contribute trillion-dollar business value to the banking industry
3. Rise in roles of IT Versatilists
4. Increase in digital commerce for the brands that revamp their websites to support visual and voice search
5. Increasing investments in bots and chat bots, sidelining mobile applications
6. Open source will keep rising the ladder
7. IoT to transform to BIoT


<snip>

[edited by: not2easy at 12:03 pm (utc) on Jan 9, 2018]
[edit reason] No promos/please see ToS [/edit]

[johnm56]

1. I'll read more "SEO is dead" posts, like I have almost every year for the past 15.

2. Local SEO will be recognised by clients as being important (we already know it is don't we).

3. Voice searches will start to take off here in the UK for more than "what's the weather today" and "what's in the news" type searches.

4. Google will redesign the search result pages to include more Adwords listings again.

[lgn1]

1) I will continue to ignore GDPR or any other extraterritorial laws, dreamed up by the EU or our annoying neighbours to the south (the government, not the people)

2) Webmasterworld will still post BItcon Post's outside of Foo

3) No doves will be roasted at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

4) Velcro will still be used as a verb. (Notice I didn't use the TM symbol)

5) In case #1 does not turn out well, I will be moving my business to a tropical island with High Speed Internet,and no extradition treaties.