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- Google will drop the beta tag from feature after feature. (look for it to happen when competitors make news)
- FireFox will rise to 10% market share.
- Microsoft will get off their duff and do something.
- Microsoft Search will be panned by critics until late 2006 when LongHorn arrives. Optimizers will rule the day.
- 17 Inch LCD monitor prices will drop to around $100 each, while 19inchers will drop to $250.
- Apple will sell 5 million MiniMacs this year and will enjoy a major revival of the Mac line. (it will be the tech story of 2005)
- SEO Consolidation: 10 firms will be bought - mostly by madison avenue agencies.
- Click Bots/Fraud - they will be the SEM story of the year.
- LSI [javelina.cet.middlebury.edu] increase (aka - Themes [searchengineworld.com] baby)
- Search will once again become a commodity. People will start to look for "fun stuff" on the web.
- BroadBand will reach a tipping point in late 2005 and broadband targetted content will skyrocket.
- Yahoo search market share will go down a few percentage points
- Local Search will be aggressively promoted by Google/Yahoo and may result in an overall local traffic growth
- Google getting into B2B selling email hosting/intranet apps and maybe an "on demand" type app hosting
- a new Business version of iPod with basic PDA functionalities!
- new adword features and innovative adword api apps .This may result in more DIY advertisers slightly reducing the SEM's market share in the mom/pop segment
- Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp will be acquiring one of the shopping comparison portals
- Massive growth in Chinese internet users (who may equal the US internet usage numbers by 2007/08)
- a mini internet/tech stock bubble will start in 2005 4Q and end in 2006 2Q
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Voice over IP will start seriously and reshape the telco market in 05/06
I am a firm believer in this ,Skype is going to be the winner and its going to be bought by some big company , my bet is on google!
Google Organic optimization is going to be much harder and only serious players will "get it"
I'm doubtful over that. The ultimate goal of ANY search engine - as far as organics are concerned - is to deliver on-topic pages for queries. However, there are not that many ways of optimizing and structuring a page so that human readers will benefit from it. Ultimately, a search engines internal rating has to act like a human being, judging the content, style and structure of a page. So if your page is excellent for a human reader, in last consequence a searcg engine algorithm HAS to come up with "excellent" for this page as well.
What we see at the moment is that search engine algorithms are far from being perfect. So what the majority here does is "help" the spiders to see the real value of a page. And often also to pretend a page is excellent when a human reader would come up with a poor judgement.
Ultimately, though, SEO comes to a natural end if the algorithms of the search engines get close to human perception. When that will be? Well, NOT in 2005, and probably neither in 2006. One (possible) approach and first baby step to emulate human readers has been speculated about in this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]
Affiliates will form a watchdog organization to keep networks honest.
We will finally hear details on the next pubcon in New Orleans...
Although, can Terminators and World Peace really coexist?
- Google Organic optimization is going to be much harder and only serious players will "get it"
Interesting way to put it, gopi. I was going to say something like "in addition to launching new things, Google will hone its focus on core quality. Many people will like the results, but not every SEO will."
(Of course, this is just me speaking personally.)
Time Warner will sell their $1 Billion Google stake to Microsoft.
Microsoft acquires TimeWarner. Bill says the primary purpose was to own the rights to Bugs Bunny so those that prefer animation to fine art can have these preferences displayed on the walls when visiting Bill and Melinda's humble abode.
Webmasters will try to optimize by constantly repeating their URL and key phrases in public when they see the bot. cheap hotels, cheap hotels, cheap hotes, credit repair, credit repair
Non webmasters will think the world gone nuts.
So everytime you search google, they'll have a little "home" flag next to the text title that, when clicked on will reveal the address details of the domain (collected from whois data), further more you'll be able to see a satellite image of the address pulled from the domain's whois data?
Even better; expand beyond the time frame of your own life expectancy and see what your grand-kids and their progeny will experience. Therein lies the future - if you can see perceive it...
Syzygy
once VOIP takes off..
A year later, VOIP spam is a major problem, some company develops VOIP spam blocker, makes a ton of money $$. :D
Some large businesses will develop a spam organization to eliminate spam for good, it calls on large web companies to redevelop the SMTP protocol.
GG ,Show mercy on us poor SEO's :)
No wait, that happens in 2050.
They will make room at the top of the serps for my affiliate pages by removing the pages that merely include the words related to the products I promote but don't sell, review, repair or recommend them.
[Edit: um.... *sigh*.... that's meant as a joke, okay?]
One of them will realise that paying double digit 'Agency commissions' under the outdated off line 'Acccredited Media Buyer' model really doesn't work online - because most 'Advertising Agency types' still don't grok the web.
One of them will realise that paying a smaller percentage as a trailing commission - to SEMs who sign up new clients for the publisher - is the real answer to maintaining revenue growth. Offering a once off $20 bounties isn't the answer. A trailing commission model will allow the publisher to have a direct relationship with the new end user client (a direct billing/ credit relationship is really what the publishers want) - rather than the 'indirect' 'Agency account' relationship they effectively encourage today.
A trailing commissions model will allow the SEM companies to add value as a separate transaction, and reward the SEM company with a small annuity share of the revenues for the new customer they introduced to the publisher. The SEM agency can also obviously charge a separate fee to manage the client's account on a day to day basis.
Transparency and equality for the 'channel' - and a direct relationship for the advertiser. I believe that the first SE publisher to offer this model will win.
