Predictions for 2003

What's going to happen this year?

[Zapatista]

Looking forward into the New Year, what events from the previous year will manifest into important developments this year? What suprises will we see and from where? Who is poised to go up and who will sink?

My only prediction I can come up with is that MSN will no longer carry inktomi results. My logic behind this? The four main players to battle it out will be AOL, Yahoo, Google and MSN. The fight is going to get nasty.

MSN can put a hurtin on Yahoo/inktomi by going somewhere else for their search results. I see Fast or Ask/Teoma as the logical new partners for MSN. Results from those two have steadily been improving.

Anyone confirm? Debunk my theory? Expand on it? Have another prediction?

I am not declaring this a prediction, but I would not be suprised to see Overture go down, Adwords go up.

Also, a question to anyone: Will Altavista become extinct or will it survive?

Zapatista

[Mike_Mackin]

I think you are correct about MSN but remember that CMGI needs $ ;)

[glengara]

OK, neck on the line here ;-)
Big change in how G views off-theme incoming links, with corresponding drop in PR and rankings.

[Zapatista]

CMGI =?

[Brad]

>>CMGI =?

CMGI is the parent company of AltaVista. They could team up with MSN.

You may well be right for the short term that MSN will boot out Ink and add either FAST, Ask or AV. However I predict by the end of 2003 MSN will buy Looksmart and therefore start developing Wisenut as a replacement for the backfill.

Other predictions:

1. Ask really gains market share.
2. Google adds a Froogle toolbar to the lineup or adds froogle to the regular toolbar.
3. Google never develops a toolbar for the Mac. ;)
4. Both Google and MSN loose some market share of web search.
5. Opera 7 is a smash hit in the browser wars.