Predictions for 2019

[engine]

What are your predictions for 2019?
Here's a few i've been thinking about.

2019 will be the real awakening of the "privacy awareness" throughout users of social media, such as Facebook and even Google. Data collection and re-use will become far more important to people than it has been in the past.

Google AdSense will continue to be a challenge for the smaller publishers.

Phishing, and online theft will continue to be a growing problem.

Email spam will continue. yawn!

The "gold rush" of virtual currency is probably over, and it will continue to be misunderstood.

SEO: Voice search opportunities will reach new highs. Snippets continue to be very important.

[LifeinAsia]

Google and social media will come under even closer scrutiny for political bias in preparation for the 2020 election in the U.S.

More hacks and data breeches (and notifications about past hacks and breeches) happening to major "trusted" companies, as well as government agencies.

The U.S. Congress will try to push the FCC into re-instating Net Neutrality.

California will try again with a "new and improved" attempt to tax text messages. California will also come up with new ways to try to to tax the Internet.

SNAP (SnapChat) will be de-listed from the NYSE (either because its shares drop too low or because the company chooses to de-list voluntarily).

[Marshall]

Biggest drop of small ecommerce sites because of A.

[tangor]

The world is coming to an end. News at Eleven.

Biggest prediction is that governments world wide are getting wise to g and fb and a regulatory mayhem may result. How that shakes out for the average webmaster is not yet known. User data privacy has been dialed up to eleven. Concerns in that regard are not "new" news, merely the next step forward. Fake news and how that is addressed will take an evil turn and one should expect a lot of collateral damage will ensue. SJW activists will agitate more, complicating things. Advertisers will be expressly targeted and some sites will face stress of all kinds.

Meanwhile, the web itself will continue to operate, but one should expect the HANDLERS of key systems will continue to make increasingly egregious errors (according to their ideology) that will bring things to a head. 2019 will be an interesting year!

Chicken Little was not available to consult on this report. The famous forecaster of the sky is falling was intensely preoccupied with his campaign of screaming "g has docked me! g has docked me!". Elsewhere the little boy and his wolf quietly offered: "The sheeple will suffer, mark it on your calendar." Before Bo Peep could provide a statement she was hauled off for attempting to kick g's fundament for arbitrarily demoting her site from Organic #1 to page three.

On a final note, Tangor, a member of Survivors of the WEB, offers this predication: "Hang tough. You know what you need to do to survive, so double down and do it right. Code clean and face the head winds. And if you can, find a way to do it YOURSELF."

Thank you for tuning in. As future events unfold WebmasterWorld will have the news and commentary that matters!

[topr8]

More talk from the EU regarding internet giants, especially around taxation (lip service to privacy - but it's the money they are interested in).

Several massive ransomware stories - government departments somewhere in the western world being the biggest victims.

A scandal regarding either Alexa or Google Home.

In online retail, websites with truely specialist products will thrive. - if they go about it the right way, for others in retail it looks increasingly bleak.

ebay will be seen to have pushed the envelope as far as they can and will go into decline.

A rise in the 'recommend a trader' type of website.

'Cybersecurity expert' will become more of a thing/service, much money will be spent by many companies with really very little idea of what they are trying to achieve - ie. an element of the emperor's new clothes.

A big rise in demand for 'Social Media Experts' - similar to cybersecurity expert - and much money will be spent on this ... with a lot of it being wasted.

A massive international scandal with accusations of online spying by foreign governments.

I also agree with all comments above (except re SNAP - which i don't know enough about to have an opinion!)

[iamlost]

Not in any particular order except what popped to mind:


The IoT added craze hit my niches last year and looks like continuing so that I'm having to research viability, longevity, security, privacy of a whole whack of new products/services so as to retain authority dominance. So much cr*p so little worthwhile so much unexpected time and effort required.

Note: just a little reminder that however important aka popular the web it is still a small part of the Internet: predicted 2019 web traffic, 15-16 exabytes; predicted 2019 Internet traffic: 155-160 exabytes.

Greatly increased use of micro-interactions to, when done well, involve and hold visitors, otherwise irritate them greatly.

Cinemagraphs will be déjà vu all over again. I mean like animated gif's are so common don't you think? <snark>

The Huawei security concerns fuss will continue against the backdrop of their holding 20-25% of 5G patents until either an accommodation is reached or workarounds found.


Social buying in the west will try to replicate that of China (55% of users buy from social apps).
Spread of shop-able tags a la Instagram and possibly native payment (lots of eyes on Instagram )
Also pay close attention to Venmo (biggest downside being owned by PayPal) and similar.

Audio version of text pages.

Environmental and ethical concerns - increasingly (variable by niche) required to appear/be socially responsible.

PWAs will proliferate and most will be as crappy as the companies' web sites. Expect push notification spam to rise to challenge email spam.


Instagram is already skewing 45+. Keep eyes on where the under 25s go.

Also following China see messaging apps move to become the centre of mobile eCom, customer service/relationship management, while aiding in product cross/up sell.

Short form product videos

Basically the entire thrust/requirements is in building loyal aka return customers

Increased use of the analytics chain: descriptive analytics (what happened), predictive analytics (what will happen), prescriptive analytics (how to make it happen). Yet another practices requirement hurdle blocking/slowing smaller businesses/sites.

Look not just to China but to Africa for what a mobile centric world that has leapfrogged desktop can teach us about possibilities.

Expect the looming US 2020 election to initiate changes (because of troll farms, fake news, etc.) in regard to the web on top of the EUs forthcoming ePrivacy and existant GDPR.

As with others I expect the mass data/privacy breaches to continue. The drone::Gatwick hullabaloo is but a precursor (I'm surprised that it took so long) of widespread tech leverage/disruption by the disaffected or foolish. In response expect disproportionate/incorrect reactions from ignorant legislators on advice of those with self serving agendas.

[lexipixel]

CB radio makes pop-culture comeback.

[tangor]

...along with 8track in dash cassettes! (that change programming between loops in mid-song)

[V4Vendetta]

I predict a time of change, and the beginning of the fightback for small independent internet traders

[tangor]

@V4Vendetta

Love the moniker! Welcome to Webmasterworld, V!

The web is always changing, sometimes good, usually for the worse, but hang in there, one can navigate the ups and downs and still get the job done!

[RhinoFish]

After losing yet another capability test, Cortana commits suicide (self deletes).

[tangor]

Hope not, that would leave her evil twin Anatroc in charge!

[lexipixel]

Here's a few i've been thinking about.
- engine

Ok.. to keep this going, I'll play devil's advocate to engine's oringinal post ---

2019 will be the real awakening of the "privacy awareness" throughout users of social media, such as Facebook and even Google. Data collection and re-use will become far more important to people than it has been in the past.

More people will give up more info, willingly or by being forced into it by large controlling interests.

Google AdSense will continue to be a challenge for the smaller publishers.

Small publishers will drop Adsense and sell local or niche ads or otherwise monetize their content.

Phishing, and online theft will continue to be a growing problem.

More people become afraid of identity theft, exposure of personal info, etc and interact with fewer, but larger and more trusted entities for transaction based exchanges reducing online theft. Transaction based online services will become more proactive in protecting user data out of fear of financial liability.

Email spam will continue. yawn!

A per email message fee of $0.01 will be adopted eliminating 99% of all spam.

The "gold rush" of virtual currency is probably over, and it will continue to be misunderstood.

A universal virtually currency will be introduced, the value of it set by a board of commodity brokers.

SEO: Voice search opportunities will reach new highs. Snippets continue to be very important.

Due to use of voice activated devices, people's vocabulary is reduced to the point where they no longer search, the devices tell them what they want before they know they want it.

[motorhaven]

More government takeover of the Internet, especially the EU.

[lakybel]

1- marketing on mobile device will be more and more important
2- privacy of people will be re-use by others advertiser networks.
3- fb is going for zero reach, so you need to pay to play
4- instgram reach also is going to zero reach.
5- local marekting is going be dominated .

[EditorialGuy]

I think one of the biggest changes (from an independent site owner's point of view) is that technologies and services enjoyed by corporate megasites will continue to trickle down toward mom-and/or-pop sites. In the past, for example, we've seen "easy and affordable or even free" solutions from:

- Google (traffic measurement)

- CloudFlare (CDNs)

- Ezoic (multivariate ad testing for AdSense publishers)

As these and other technologies, platforms, and services continue to trickle down to Joe and Jo Webmaster, we'll see more professionalism at all levels of Web publishing.

[celgins]

The U.S. FAA might implement new regulations to further restrict drone use among private citizens. However, the use of drones will grow in several areas (i.e. Amazon deliveries, border security expansion, etc.)

Data breaches and ransomware attacks will continue to be a problem for large corporations.

The implementation of self-driving vehicles--including large transport OTR trucks--will not progress much further than they did in 2018.

[heisje]

technologies and services enjoyed by corporate megasites will continue to trickle down toward mom-and/or-pop sites

if any left . . . .
.

[topr8]

@lakybel

3- fb is going for zero reach, so you need to pay to play

what does zero reach mean? ...

[RhinoFish]

I took it to mean that your content on FB won't reach anyone, it'll reach zero people (so you need to run paid ads to be seen).

[mcneely]

FB won't reach anyone ... it'll reach zero people

Actually, though Facebook targeting is virtually non-existent as a rule, and always has been -- Telling people they can increase their reach isn't exactly a non-truth, in that if you give them 10 bucks, your ad will be seen by anyone who owns a phone in Indonesia, or Malaysia or something like that, and it will generate 1,000 or more non-engaged likes from people (bots) that have no intention of purchasing anything.

[mcneely]

My prediction for 2019 will be that since the quality of food in the United States has steadily declined over the past 30 years, there will be twice as many food recalls in 2019 as there were in 2018

Secondly -- Facebook will continue to slog on in it's slow death as more of it's disinterested and disengaged user base leave the platform. Social networking platforms will continue to be overrun by the barbarians of fake news and hate posts ... ad revenue will continue to drop.

Thirdly -- More paywalls for news media sites as ad profits evaporate into thin air because of click bait and fake news - may also lead to a somewhat small journalistic renaissance.

... and finally -- Small to medium sized publishers will continue to flee the larger ad platforms in favour of serving their own ads locally and regionally (dynamic and static).

[not2easy]

It looks as though Brett Tabke's site forums.devshed.com will very
soon cease to be.

It has already been blocked by Firefox and is now on Google's hit list...

"No Unsafe Content Found" at Google's Safe Browsing site status seems to be kind of a wimpy 'hit list'. FF didn't block it for me either. I must be doing something wrong.

[lucy24]

kind of a wimpy 'hit list'

Do you suppose some number of requests auto-triggers a fresh search?

This info was last updated on Dec 30, 2018.

An especially interesting thing to see, since I live in the same time zone as Google, and it's only the 29th here.

[birdbrain]

quote by not2easy;

FF didn't block it for me either.
I must be doing something wrong.

Well, it was being blocked at the time of my post. ;)

If you want to see the actual problem then go to the site,
in any browser of your choice, and make a few navigations.

Before you know it you'll be transported somewhere else. :(

I only made the post because I believed that the site was
the property of Brett Tabke. :)

birdbrain

[mcneely]

... Before you know it you'll be transported somewhere else. :(

Aside from the site not having SSL, the only thing I can see is a https on developershed (dot) com that Firefox won't load because of a mis-matched cert

[blend27]

... Before you know it you'll be transported somewhere else. :(

In our neck of the woods we call it 'Next Door', or out of Index if you will...

iPhone will be renamed to mePhone, Times will finally have some shackles on it its front page, FB will be rebranded as JLoPages(just lovely orange, dont ask, better that way) and...

[DixonJones]

My prediction:
An erosion of the middle classes, as bots and AI start to run the day-to-to roles of:

Bankers, Lawyers,Accountants, insurers, Doctors, teachers... infact any knowledge based profession.

The creative sciences may holdback the tide for a while, but overall, AI will create a wedge between those that can own and control (or program) the machines and everyone else. This will erode the middle classes and create a “Metropolis” style world. (The classical book/film).

It will be interesting to see where in the world this will create “Peasants Revolts”. I am looking at the Yellow Jackets in France for starters.

[heisje]

An erosion of the middle classes

This constitutes the most terrifying aspect of current times. In the same way the ascent of the middle classes brought social progress, prosperity and peace for all, the rapid decline of the middle classes along with the immense concentration of economic power and the rise of bigotry are bad omens for the future. Dark clouds are accumulating over the horizon with ominous & unpredictable prospects.
.

[Webwork]

The movie "Idiocracy" is moved from the category "humor, farce" to "documentary film".